Resident Doctors in the UK to Begin Five Consecutive Day Walkout in November
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.
Junior physicians, who constitute about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.
Causes of the Walkout
Dr Jack Fletcher commented, “This is not where we wanted to be. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over a number of years, giving newly trained doctors 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 community and our patients and would also help prevent our physicians departing from the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have as much as eight years of experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.
Further information will follow soon.
