The trainee doctors will hold a 96-hour strike next month after collective bargaining with ministers collapsed.
Bosses at the British Medical Association (BMA), which is orchestrating the strike, said it would take place between 7am on April 11 and 7am on April 15.
This means the strike will take place just after the bank holiday weekend, when the NHS runs a ‘Christmas Day’ service, which is traditionally a busy time for the healthcare sector.
Union officials argued that the decision to strike again was based on the lack of a “credible offer”. Young doctors want an inflation rate of 35 percent.
Dr. Vivek Trivedi and Dr. Robert Laurenson, co-chairman of BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, said they had announced the new union action “with disappointment and great frustration”.
Young doctors on a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in central London during their first strike earlier this month
British Medical Association officials said Health Secretary Steve Barclay (pictured) was not prepared to accept less than a 35 per cent pay rise
“The government has stretched every opportunity,” they said.
She has made no credible offer and refuses to accept that there is any justification for back wages, calling our key demand “unrealistic” and “unreasonable”.
“Even yesterday they kept adding new, unacceptable conditions to the talks instead of going ahead and trying to find a solution.”
They added that they therefore have “no confidence” in the success of further negotiations.
BMA officials said the blame for the new strike lay solely with the government, which had already succeeded in outbidding other unions that had struck this winter.
“We want to spend our time taking care of patients and not going on strike,” said a spokesperson.
“But with an NHS collapsing under a staffing crisis and four in 10 young doctors looking to leave, we cannot stand by and watch inflation and an unyielding government continue to erode our wages.
“We won’t stop until we’ve paid what we’re worth and if ministers don’t accept that when we tell them in person, we have to tell them about the picket line.”
Talks between the BMA, dubbed “militant” by its critics, and Minister of Health Steve Barclay collapsed after saying it was them unwilling to accept less than a 35 percent increase.
They also called for free parking, the abolition of exam fees and a guarantee that future wage increases will be indexed to inflation.
Almost 325,000 surgeries and appointments canceled this winter due to NHS strikes
Read more: Now the general practitioners can strike! Plants can be closed for 24 HOURS or extremely limited dates under union action plans reviewed by BMA
GPs could vote on whether to hold a 24-hour strike across England in response to the imposition of an ‘offensive’ NHS contract (stock photo)
Mr Barclay yesterday urged doctors to walk away and think about how they wanted to proceed, adding that further talks were useless until they were ready to back down.
The BMA has now responded and announced the new strike dates, which are even longer than previous union actions.
This is already the second departure of junior paramedics in the current collective bargaining dispute.
A similar three-day strike last week led to the cancellation of more than 175,000 NHS appointments and procedures. It saw her go emergency rooms, obstetrics and cancer wards.
The newly announced measure is likely to have a similar, if not greater, impact.
NHS England said around 28,700 doctors below the rank of consultant were absent from work every day as a result of last week’s industrial action.
The strike is part of the BMA’s “Wage Reclaim” campaign for junior doctors.
Labor strikes by junior doctors have a particularly large impact on the NHS, which makes up around 45 per cent of the medical workforce.
Because of the huge amount of daily work in healthcare, such as ordering tests and scans, assessing and discharging patients, young doctors have been called the ‘backbone of the NHS’.
It also helps free up time for more experienced clinicians to treat specific specialty patients or more complex cases.
NHS Providers deputy director Saffron Cordery said the prospect of a 96-hour strike by junior doctors would ring “alarm bells” in the healthcare sector, particularly because of the timing.
“It would come immediately after a four-day holiday weekend, which means demand will have built up before the strike starts on April 11,” she said.
There are no exceptions either. It threatens the biggest disruption in NHS strikes yet.”
She called on both the government and the BMA to urgently resume talks in “good faith”.
“There should be no doubt about the scale of the impact on patients, staff and the NHS. Nobody wants that,” she said.
The BMA’s latest move comes just days after it was revealed plans for a nationwide GP strike were being considered.
Options being considered by the union for inclusion in a yet-to-be-announced vote could include a 24-hour closure of GP practices across England.
The union sees the move as a protest against an “offensive” NHS contract that has been heralded as the end of Britons’ hated 8am appointments battle.
A separate pay dispute involving NHS workers such as nurses, physiotherapists and paramedics is currently being broken up by union members voting on a pay deal that includes a one-off bonus of up to £3,800 and a 5 per cent pay rise for the next year.
However, some members of the NHS union are organizing a revolt against what they describe as a “poor supply” of ministers.
A union group called NHS Workers Say No has already sent out thousands of leaflets, made online appeals and launched WhatsApp networks to persuade members to oppose the deal.
The deal came after months of wrangling as ministers offered unions the £4bn deal to end strikes that have paralyzed hospitals and led to the cancellation of more than 100,000 procedures this winter.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been asked to comment on the new BMA strike.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
