LONDON (Reuters) -Junior doctors in England will begin strike action on Friday over concerns about job insecurity and pay erosion, with their union saying the government could still avert the walkout by making a “decent” offer.
The strike follows failed talks with the government to produce what the British Medical Association (BMA) called a “credible plan” to address unemployment among newly qualified doctors and years of real-terms pay erosion.
Last year the newly elected Labour government quickly reached a settlement with junior doctors for a 22% pay rise, hoping to draw a line under a long-running series of strikes under the previous, Conservative government.
However, the doctors returned to the picket lines this year after asking for more than the 5.4% the government had awarded in its next pay round. Ministers refused to go any higher, citing increasingly strained public finances.
“These strikes did not have to go ahead and the government can stop them even now with a decent offer on pay and jobs,” BMA resident doctors committee chair Jack Fletcher said.
“What has been offered so far still leaves thousands of resident doctors without a role this year, and the government seems determined to cut pay even further next year,” he added.
The BMA said the strikes by junior doctors, who are also known as resident doctors and are qualified physicians who make up nearly half of the medical workforce, would begin at 0700 GMT on November 14 and last until 0700 GMT on November 19.
Wes Streeting, Britain’s health minister, previously urged the BMA to call off the strike and described the action as “unreasonable and unnecessary”.
The BMA has been seeking a 29% rise to restore pay to 2008 levels, arguing that half of second-year doctors now struggle to find jobs despite widespread staff shortages.
“We have doctors sitting on bins because there aren’t enough chairs, patients routinely being seen in corridors, A&E waits through the roof and rota gaps are an accepted norm,” Fletcher said. “How on earth can doctors provide high-quality care in such conditions?”
(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
