Junior doctors will strike on March 13, 14 and 15, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.
Junior doctors in England have voted to strike over pay and conditions. They are asking for a pay increase to make up for 15 years of inflation. Nearly 37,000 voted to strike in the recent ballot, coming after historic industrial action from nurses and ambulance workers.
The term "junior doctors" covers everyone who has just graduated from medical school through to those with many years' experience on the front line, reports the BBC. Overall, they account for more than 40 per cent of the medical workforce.
READ MORE: Dad at risk of losing sight as eyelid swelled to ‘size of cherry tomato’ after devastating diagnosis
The last time junior doctors went on strike was in 2016 over a new contract that had been introduced. During the 2016 strike, consultants stepped in - but this meant a huge amount of pre-planned treatments such as knee and hip replacements had to be cancelled.
The three-day strike this March will start and finish at 7am. Junior doctors will walk out of both routine and emergency care - although by law they they can only withdraw from life-and-limb emergency care if the NHS has found other staff to cover for them.
The BMA union says junior doctors are "demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real terms decline of over 26 per cent in the past 15 years". They said finances and "the stress and exhaustion of working in an NHS crisis" had brought them to this moment.
"We have not been told why we have not been offered intensive negotiations nor what we need to do for the government to begin negotiations with us. We are left with no option but to proceed with this action," the BMA junior doctors' committee said.
The Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said it was "deeply disappointing" that some union members had voted for strike action. They said junior doctors' pay had increased by a cumulative 8.2 per cent since 2019-20, and a higher pay band had been introduced for the most experienced staff and increased rates for night shifts.
Read more of today's top stories here.
READ NEXT:
