UK Resident Doctors Prepare New Strikes

On Tuesday, the British Medical Association (BMA) announced that resident doctors in England are set to initiate new strikes throughout this month and January, as negotiations with the government have failed to yield satisfactory results.

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The co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors' committee, Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi, stated that "after five weeks of intensive negotiations, the government has failed to present a credible salary offer before the deadline."

“We have arrived at our pre agreed deadline. Despite intense negotiations, the Government have not been able to put forward a credible offer. Our committee has voted unanimously to call for further strike action,” said Trivedi, an anaesthetic doctor

"Instead, we were offered an additional 3 percent, distributed unevenly across all grades of doctors, which would still result in salary cuts for many doctors this year," Laurenson and Trivedi pointed out. 

"It is evident that the government is still unwilling to address the real salary cuts that doctors have endured since 2008," said the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors' committee.

"With great regret, despite a more constructive approach, there hasn't been enough offered to shape a credible agreement, which we had hoped would bring an end to this dispute," they pointed out.

"There is no choice but to take measures that demonstrate that doctors are more determined than ever to reverse their salary cuts," the BMA stressed.

The goal of these doctors is to secure a 35 percent salary increase to compensate for the significant inflation-adjusted decreases they have experienced in recent years.