Resident Physicians in England to Begin Five-Day Strike Next Month

Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five-day strike in November, due to disputes regarding jobs and pay.

Walkout Information

The BMA announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.

Junior physicians, who make up about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.

Causes of the Walkout

Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”

“Our survey reveals half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”

He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a agreement offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, giving recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”

“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”

About Resident Doctors

Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.

More details will follow shortly.