HERE<\/a><\/p>\nDoctors in England will go on strike for five days in November, starting this week, in an ongoing row over jobs and pay.<\/p>\n
The British Medical Association (BMA) said resident doctors will strike on five consecutive days from 7am on November 14 to 7am on November 19.<\/p>\n
Health Secretary Wes Streeting described the move as \u201cpreposterous\u201d and accused the BMA of \u201cblocking a better deal for doctors\u201d.<\/p>\n
Resident doctors, previously named junior doctors, make up around half of all doctors in the NHS.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody for one minute underestimates the scale of the problems posed by long delays including corridor care, alongside financial pressures and a relentless increase in demand,\u201d continued Mr Elkeles during the opening address at the Manchester event this morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s clear that progress is uneven. Some trusts, mainly district general hospitals \u2013 through no fault of their own \u2013 have a bigger and steeper hill to climb.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore staff walkouts would trample on these hard-won gains, at a terrible cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chief executive, who runs the NHS Providers membership organisation for the NHS hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services, said it\u2019s not just resident doctors who are dissatisfied.<\/p>\n
He said the government\u2019s upcoming 10-year workforce plan for the NHS needs a \u2018actually a whole reset on pay, benefits and pensions for every group of staff in the NHS\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s face it, it\u2019s not just resident doctors who are dissatisfied currently,<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are plenty of other staff groups whose unions are making a forceful case for a better deal and it feels that this year\u2019s pay round is going to bring these to a head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA\u2019s resident doctors committee (RDC), said: \u201cThis is not where we wanted to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have spent the last week in talks with Government, pressing the Health Secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked with the Government in good faith \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter employment prospects and restoring pay are a credible way forward that would work for doctors, work for Government, and work for our patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Health Secretary\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we want to get a deal done, the Government seemingly does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Streeting said the walkouts are \u201cunreasonable and unnecessary\u201d and \u201cdo not have the public\u2019s support, nor did a majority of resident doctors vote for them\u201d.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762949606_320_2_Resident-doctors-industrial-action.jpg\")
Health Secretary Wes Streeting (Image: PA)<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt is preposterous that the BMA have rushed headlong into more damaging strike action a week after its new leadership opened discussions with the Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter resident doctors have received a 28.9% pay rise, the Government has been clear that we simply cannot go further on pay this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut by walking out on strike, the BMA are walking away from an offer to improve resident doctors\u2019 working conditions and create more specialty training roles to progress their careers. The BMA are blocking a better deal for doctors.<\/p>\n
The Health Secretary also warned that \u201cthe BMA\u2019s reckless posturing will harm patients, leave other doctors and NHS staff to pick up the pieces and divert resources away from rebuilding the NHS\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not allow the BMA to wreck the NHS\u2019s recovery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge the BMA to call off these needless strikes and come back to the table. They have a Government that wants to work with them to improve the working lives of resident doctors and create an NHS fit for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years\u2019 experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The strike ‘threatens to wipe out a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our national health service’, warns one NHS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,603,211,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-565548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-national-news","11":"tag-nhs","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115536672464756229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1_Resident-Doctors-Strike-Over-Pay-in-London.jpg\")
Doctors are walking out this week(Image: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publis)<\/p>\n