🔗 Share this article Junior Physicians in the UK to Stage Five-Day Walkout Next Month Doctors in the UK are set to stage a five-day strike in November, in protest over jobs and pay. Strike Details The BMA stated that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from 7am on 14 November to 7am on 19 November. Junior physicians, who make up nearly 50% of all medical staff in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations 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 government, pressing the health minister to end the crisis 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 countless individuals wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.” He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the health secretary to see that a agreement offering solutions to slowly restore the pay reductions over a number of 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 reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors departing from the NHS.” Who Are Resident Physicians? Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience practicing in hospitals, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care. More details are expected shortly.