Junior doctors in England are to stage a five-day strike next month in what is thought to be the longest single walkout in NHS history.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) will walk out from July 13 to 18 in a dramatic escalation of their dispute with the government over pay and staffing.
The announcement was made as a BMA survey showed that junior doctors report being inundated with more opportunities to move abroad in the last four months than ever before.
Just over half of the nearly 2,000 junior doctors surveyed said they have received more job advertisements from recruiters for overseas jobs since strikes were announced.
The government of South Australia even paid for trucks to be sent to junior doctor picket lines carrying job adverts offering improved pay if those doctors emigrated, it was revealed.
Co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “The NHS is one of this country’s proudest achievements and it is shameful that we have a Government seemingly content to let it decline to the point of collapse with decades of real-terms pay cuts to doctors driving them away.
“With the 75th birthday of the NHS just days away, 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 per hour for a country which will pay them properly.
“It has been almost a week since the last round of strikes finished but not once have we heard from Rishi Sunak or Steve Barclay in terms of reopening negotiations since their collapse of our talks and cancelling all scheduled meetings a month ago.
Striking junior doctors march through Manchester during last week’s walkout in a dispute over pay and conditions— (PA)
“What better indication of how committed they are to ending this dispute could we have? As their refusal to even discuss pay restoration leads to continued disruption to the health service, more than four-fifths of junior doctors report finding their patients supportive – they understand the value of a fully staffed and resourced NHS.
“We are announcing the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history – but this is not a record that needs to go into the history books.
“Even now the government can avert our action by coming to the table with a credible offer on pay restoration.
“Restoring pay can stem the flow of Australian job adverts in doctors’ social media feeds – and lead to a future 75 years of doctors being paid fairly, in a rebuilt workforce and NHS that this country can continue to be proud of.”
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “Trust leaders, staff and patients will have that sinking feeling at the prospect of five straight days of strike disruption, the longest-ever single period of industrial action in the history of the NHS.
Junior doctors say they are overworked and underpaid— (PA Wire)
“After a three-day walkout by junior doctors already this month, forcing more than 100,000 more procedures and appointments to be rescheduled (more than 651,000 in total since December) and with nurses, radiographers and consultants – who could strike for two days in July – being balloted too this figure is bound to rise by many thousands more.
“Trust leaders’ priority throughout any industrial action will remain to keep patients safe and deliver high-quality care but this is getting tougher the longer strikes persist, and it’s getting more and more expensive to find cover for staff on picket lines.
“This can’t go on and become ‘business as usual’. We urge the Government and unions to break the deadlock and enter arbitration to find a way to end disruptive strikes.”
