Strike action by junior doctors will take place from 7am on Saturday (24 February) to midnight on Wednesday (28 February).
The British Medical Association says action is being taken because while workload and waiting lists are at record highs, junior doctors’ pay has been cut by more than a quarter since 2008.
Data shows NHS staff continue to contend with high demand for urgent and emergency care, with 89,377 ambulance handovers to hospitals last week, up 12% from 79,752 in the same week last year nationally.
By the end of the walk out hospital doctors will have taken 44 days or 1,056 hours of industrial action over the last year.
The British Medical Association says: “Progress was being made in talks but the Government failed to meet the deadline of 8 February to present a credible offer.
“In order to allow more time for negotiations to continue, we extended an offer to the Health Secretary to cancel this round of strikes before it was announced publicly if she agreed to extend the mandate for strike action for four weeks. Unfortunately she declined to do so leaving us no choice but to announce this final strike of our mandate.”
To mitigate the impact of strike action, trusts are putting in place measures to maintain care for those who need it urgently, and rescheduling planned appointments which are now unable to go ahead.
The previous round of industrial action by junior doctors took place in January. Junior doctors make up around half of all doctors in the NHS and have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.
The NHS is advising the public to use 111 online as the first port of call for urgent but not life-threatening issues during industrial action so that they can be directed to the best place for their needs. Patients who need medical care should continue to use 999 or go to A&E as normal.
Patients who haven’t been contacted to say their appointment has been cancelled should also attend as normal.
Junior doctors in the NHS in England say they are taking strike action to:
- achieve full pay restoration to reverse the steep decline in pay faced by junior doctors since 2008/9
- agree on a mechanism with the Government to prevent any future declines against the cost of living and inflation
- reform the DDRB (Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body) process so pay increases can be recommended independently and fairly to safeguard the recruitment and retention of junior doctors.
