The “junior doctors”, doctors with a status similar to that of trainees in France, began a nine-day strike in England on Wednesday, planned in two stages, to secure a pay increase that they say would help to stem the hemorrhage in England profession.
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This new strike comes after previous movements in recent months and the breakdown of negotiations with the government, at a time when the public health system, the NHS, is struggling to cope with the huge waiting lists on which patients are languishing.
Sumi Manirajan, a 29-year-old doctor and member of the BMA (British Medical Association), was interviewed by AFP about a picket line and said he had “many colleagues” who had left the UK for Australia or New Zealand.
“Salaries are low,” “working conditions are bad and we don’t have enough doctors,” he explains, pointing to the 50,000 shortage of doctors compared to other European countries.
“There is a massive brain drain” and a “real sense of abandonment by the country,” explains Joseph Kendall, a psychiatrist, “as if our social contract has been torn apart.”
“We have to pay our doctors fairly” in order to keep them, emphasizes Lili Hwong, an otolaryngologist.
According to government figures, a “junior doctor” earns around £32,000 (€37,000) in their first year of practice.
The strike began at 7:00 a.m. GMT and lasted until 7:00 a.m. GMT Saturday morning. Doctors will then walk off work again for six days from January 3rd to 9th, in what will be the longest strike in the history of the NHS.
“After five weeks of intensive negotiations, the government has proven unable to present a credible pay offer,” said the BMA (British Medical Association) in its press release announcing this new move in early December.
“Junior doctors” have been offered a 3% increase on top of the average pay of 8.8% already granted this summer, but according to the BMA union these proposals still represent a loss of purchasing power for many doctors.
“Huge disruption”
This new strike is “very disappointing”, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, stressing that “junior doctors” were now “the only” public employees with whom a pay agreement had not been reached.
He also warned that this strike would worsen patient waiting lists.
Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said: “These strikes come at a time when they will cause huge disruption to the NHS, whose services are already under winter pressure.”
“(Hospital) managers’ worst fears have come true with this strike,” lamented Julian Hartley, president of NHS Providers, an organization that brings hospital centers together.
On the eve of the strike, Health Minister Victoria Atkins sought reassurance, stressing that “significant emergency measures” had been taken to mitigate disruption, adding that her door to negotiations “remains open” provided the movement is stopped.
Britain's healthcare system, which is suffering from staff shortages and long waiting lists, has been marked by a series of strikes by various categories of staff in recent months, including an unprecedented action by nurses.
A category of senior doctors, “consultants”, recently achieved a rise from 6% to 19.6%, which BMA union members have not yet voted on.
Due to the purchasing power crisis, there have been numerous strikes in the United Kingdom since mid-2022. Having remained above 10% for a long time, the most recent decline in inflation was 4.6% in October.