Resident Physicians in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Strike in November

Doctors in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.

Walkout Information

The British Medical Association (BMA) stated that junior physicians will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.

Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the government.

Reasons Behind the Strike

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to resolve the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”

“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This cannot continue.”

He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”

“We hoped the government 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 stop our doctors departing from the NHS.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

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

Further information will follow soon.