Junior doctors in England have voted in favour of taking strike action, their trade union said on Tuesday, threatening Britain’s hospitals with a wave of disruption just as the government has started to improve services.
Junior doctors, who are also known as resident doctors, voted for industrial action after they were offered an average 5.4% pay rise by the government, far below the 29% they say is necessary to address years of erosion in real-terms pay.
“Doctors have spoken and spoken clearly: they won’t accept that they are worth a fifth less than they were in 2008,” Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt, the co-chairs of the British Medical Association’s resident doctors committee, said.
The mandate allows industrial action to take place until January but the BMA said there was “still time to avert strike action.”
Junior doctors, who are qualified physicians, often have several years of experience and make up 25% of Britain’s medical workforce.
(Reuters)