🔗 Share this article

Medical professionals in England are preparing to begin a five consecutive day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.

Walkout Information

The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November.

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

Reasons Behind the Strike

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with government, urging the health secretary to end the crisis 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 millions of patients 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 see 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 reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our patients and would also help stop our doctors departing from the NHS.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, based on their field, or as many as three years in general practice.

More details will follow shortly.