Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five-Day Strike Next Month

Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five consecutive day walkout in November, 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 November 19 at 7am.

Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the health department.

Causes of the Walkout

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health minister to resolve the scandal of doctors going unemployed.”

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

He added, “We negotiated sincerely, keen for the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”

“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our patients and would also help stop our physicians leaving 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 up to three years in general practice.

Further information will follow shortly.