JUNIOR DOCTORS IN ENGLAND ANNOUNCE FIVE-DAY STRIKE DURING JUNE AND JULY

Junior doctors in England have announced they will be going on strike for five days from Thursday 27th June until Tuesday 2nd July.

The walkout by members of the British Medical Association, will start at 7am on 27th June.

The union is asking for a 35 per cent pay rise to make up for what it believes is 15 years of below inflation pay rises.

During the last financial year, junior doctors received a pay rise of almost an average of nine per cent.

This is the 11th industrial action staged by junior doctors since March 2023. They will walk out of all services, with senior doctors drafted in.

The strike dates mean elective services, such as routine operations, will be affected in the run-up to the general election, which takes place on Thursday 4th July.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “We made clear to the government that we would strike unless discussions ended in a credible pay offer.

“For more than 18 months we have been asking Rishi Sunak to put forward proposals to restore the pay junior doctors have lost over the past 15 years, equal to more than a quarter in real terms.

“When we entered mediation with government this month we did so under the impression that we had a functioning government that would soon be making an offer.

“Clearly no offer is now forthcoming. Junior doctors are fed up and out of patience. Even at this late stage Mr Sunak has the opportunity to show that he cares about the NHS and its workers.

“It is finally time for him to make a concrete commitment to restore doctors’ pay. If during this campaign he makes such a public commitment that is acceptable to the BMA’s junior doctors committee, then no strikes need go ahead.”