Resident doctors in England will go on strike next month, the British Medical Association has said.
The strike, which will take place between 14 and 19 November, is part of escalating industrial action over jobs and pay.
Dr Jack Fletcher, chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, has called on Health Secretary Wes Streeting to “come forward with a proper offer on jobs, on pay”.
“This is not where we wanted to bel,” said Dr Fletcher. “We have spent the last week in talks with government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.
“We know from our own survey half of second year doctors in England are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment, and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.
“We talked with the Government in good faith – keen for the health secretary to see that a deal that included options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly-trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.
“We hoped the Government would see that our asks are not just reasonable, but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.
“The health secretary’s 11th hour letter to us today makes vague promises for some degree of change to jobs and training for two years hence, showing little understanding of the crisis here and now, or a real commitment to fix it.
“While we want to get a deal done, the government seemingly, does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.
“That is disappointing, but it is not irredeemable. Wes Streeting inherited an NHS falling apart through decades of underinvestment, but restoring our pay over several years, along with concrete plans to create more jobs and training places, would go a long way towards the start of a new and better health service.
“We need the health secretary to step up, come forward with a proper offer on jobs, on pay. We need him to embrace change and make an NHS fit for doctors and fit for patients.”
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