Resident Physicians in England to Launch Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Medical professionals in England are preparing to stage a five-day strike next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that resident doctors will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the government.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health secretary to end the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We trusted the government would see that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help stop our physicians departing from the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in general practice.
More details are expected soon.
