A strike of unprecedented length within the British public health system. THE junior doctorsdoctors with a status close to that of interns in France, will stop working in England for six days, from Wednesday January 3, to demand raises.
After three days of strike before Christmas and numerous other walkouts in recent months, young doctors are toughening up their mobilization after the end-of-year holidays, due to lack of agreement reached with the government in the face of the crisis caused by inflation. The movement of junior doctorsof which there are nearly 70,000 in England, will begin at 7 a.m. local time (8 a.m. in Paris) on Wednesday morning and end on Tuesday January 9 at the same time.
This new six-day strike comes at a time when the British public health system, the NHS, is experiencing a hemorrhage of doctors and is struggling to reduce the gigantic waiting lists for patients. It has been marked in recent months by a series of historic strikes by various categories of its staff, including nurses, for the first time.
The NHS was concerned about the consequences of this movement in the middle of winter, explaining that the “almost all routine care will be disrupted” with priority given to emergency care.
A drop in wages of almost a quarter since 2008
This January could be “one of the worst starts to a year the NHS has seen”warned Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, in a press release, who called on patients not to give up care. “This action will not only have a huge impact on planned care, but it comes on top of a range of seasonal pressures such as Covid-19, flu and staff absences due to illness, which are affecting how patients are treated in hospitals »he added.
A junior doctor earns around 32,000 pounds sterling (37,000 euros) during his first year in office, notes the government. According to the British Medical Association (BMA), which has 46,000 young doctors in its ranks, their salaries have fallen by almost a quarter since 2008, taking into account inflation.
The government negotiated for five weeks in the fall to try to resolve the situation before the tense winter period. He offered them a 3% salary increase at the beginning of December, in addition to the 8.8% average increase already granted this summer.
Thousands of canceled appointments
However, for the BMA union, “the government has not shown itself capable of presenting a credible offer on salaries” : his proposal would not, according to him, stop the decline in purchasing power. Representatives of the union’s young doctors committee, Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi, regretted on Wednesday having waited throughout the holiday period ” the final offer » promised by the Minister of Health, without receiving anything.
“We are ready to have further discussions, but the first thing to do is to end this strike”, a Downing Street spokesperson responded on Tuesday, noting that 88,000 medical appointments were canceled during the three days of strike in December. At that time, the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, described “very disappointing” the continuation of the movement, accusing these doctors of further lengthening the waiting lists for patients.
A category of experienced doctors, consultantsrecently obtained an increase ranging from 6% to 19.6%, on which the members of the BMA union must still vote.