Junior Doctors in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November

Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike next month, in protest over pay and employment.

Strike Details

The BMA stated that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.

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

Reasons Behind the Strike

Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, urging the health minister to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”

“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts remain vacant. This cannot continue.”

He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the minister to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”

“We trusted the authorities would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our doctors leaving the health service.”

About Resident Doctors

Junior physicians have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.

Further information will follow soon.