Resident Doctors in the UK to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike in November

Medical professionals in the UK are preparing to begin a five-day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.

Strike Details

The BMA stated 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 constitute about half of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.

Reasons Behind the Strike

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”

“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 shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”

He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, providing recent graduates a raise of only £1 per hour for the next four years.”

“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the health service.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.

Further information are expected shortly.