Junior doctors will strike for 72 hours from March 13 over pay and conditions, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.
In a statement released on Friday, the BMA said that industrial action would begin on the morning of March 13 and last until March 16.
It is the second time that junior doctors have gone on strike in a decade and comes amid a wave of industrial action across the NHS. Nurses, ambulance workers and physiotherapists have all walked out in the past two months.
The BMA said that strikes would include a “full stoppage” of work including night shifts, “on-call” shifts and non-resident work. Staff in A&E and cancer wards will also walk out.
Almost 37,000 votes were cast in the BMA’s ballot and 98 per cent of those were cast in favour of strike action, meaning this was the largest ever turnout for a ballot of doctors by the union.
It will come a week after paramedics go on strike in London on March 8 in an ongoing dispute over pay with the Government.
But nursing strikes that were scheduled to take place next Wednesday were paused after the Government announced that it would hold “intensive talks” with the Royal College of Nursing.
NHS leaders have pleaded with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Government to negotiate with unions on pay as the health service faces the prospect of widespread disruption.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said trust leaders were “deeply concerned” about the impact of the junior doctors’ strike.
More than 140,000 appointments have already been postponed due to industrial action and this will rise “significantly”, she warned.
Earlier this week, junior doctors told the Standard that many in the profession felt “undervalued and overworked” and were seeking better paid work abroad.
Maria Vittoria Capanna, a junior doctor and BMA member, said: “You feel like you’re just a number and fulfilling a service. The general slow erosion of what it means to be a doctor and how you’re valued in your workplace has made people feel so disillusioned.”
