Doctors in England to hold 5-day strike, longest in history of National Health Service
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A protest by junior doctors, physicians who are not senior specialists but may have years of experience, at Parliament Square, London.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
LONDON – Junior doctors in England will strike for five consecutive days
The strike will take place between July 13 to July 18, the BMA said in a statement on Friday.
The trade union, which represents UK doctors, said it heard nothing from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak or Health Secretary Steve Barclay about reopening negotiations since the collapse of talks
The extended protest is a fresh blow to Mr Sunak, who is currently under pressure to fix a mortgage crisis
Hundreds of thousands of planned hospital appointments have been cancelled so far in the dispute with doctors, who are demanding a substantial pay rise,
The strike also threatens to undermine Mr Sunak’s key priority to shorten NHS waiting lists.
With a general election expected next year, get a grip on ongoing strikes
Some 20,000 railway workers will also walk out
The BMA said on Friday that junior doctors, who are qualified doctors
The government’s “neglect of its workforce has left us with 7.4 million people on waiting lists for surgery and procedures, 8,500 unfilled doctors’ posts in hospitals, and doctors who can barely walk down the road without a foreign government tempting them to leave an NHS where they are paid £14 (S$24) per hour”, said Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee. BLOOMBERG
