UK Junior doctors on 4-day strike demanding higher pay

Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co-chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) Junior Doctors Committee, has been at the forefront of calls for so-called “pay restoration” for an estimated 45,000 junior doctors employed across the state-funded National Health Service (NHS). 

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They claim a 35 percent increase in their pay would compensate for 15 years of below-inflation wage increases.

UK Health Secretary Steve Barclay had written to the committee to say he was serious about “rapidly settling this dispute” but the government has indicated their pay demand is too high.

“We don’t want to go on strike, we don’t have to go on strike. We are willing to negotiate but we haven’t been offered anything so far,” said Trivedi.

The BMA, a professional association and trade union, said the strikes revolve around a 26 percent erosion in the real-term pay of these doctors over the past 15 years.

Fresh advertisements by the union are being rolled out in support of the pay dispute seeking to highlight how little they are paid for specialist roles in surgical procedures.

Trivedi, along with co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson, said in a joint statement: “This is highly skilled work requiring years of study and intensive training in a high-pressure environment where the job can be a matter of life and death.

“Full pay restoration is not a high price to pay for healthcare that junior doctors deliver… As we have made clear in our latest offer to begin talks – we are always ready to talk and Mr Barclay can stop the strikes at any time if he proposes a credible offer,” he said.

More than 40 percent of England’s medical workforce are classed as junior doctors, a term the NHS uses to cover qualified doctors who have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in general practice.

“This is set to be the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history, and the strikes will bring immense pressures,” said Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for the NHS in England.

“Emergency, urgent and critical care will be prioritized but some patients will, unfortunately, have had their appointments postponed,” he added.

The UK government has called for the strike action – expected to last until Saturday early morning – to be called off before negotiations can take place.

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