Junior Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Walkout in November

Medical professionals in the UK are set to begin a five-day walkout in November, in protest over jobs and pay.

Walkout Information

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from 7am on 14 November to November 19 at 7am.

Junior physicians, who constitute nearly 50% of all medical staff in the National Health Service, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the government.

Causes of the Walkout

Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “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.”

“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This cannot continue.”

He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the health secretary to see that a deal offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”

“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just reasonable 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.”

About Resident Doctors

Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.

More details will follow shortly.