The specialist doctors in England they started this morning strike that will last six days, something unprecedented for Britain's public health system which has been in crisis for months. The mobilization of specialist doctors, which is approx 70,000 in England, started today at 07:00 (local time, 09:00 Greek time) and will be terminated next Tuesday at the same time.
After three days of strike action before Christmas and many more during the last few months, the specialist doctors, who they are asking for salary increases, are hardening their stance as they have not been able to reach an agreement with the British government.
According to the APE – MEB, this January may be “one of the worst starts of the year” that Britain's national health system has experienced, warned NHS executive Stephen Powis, who however asked patients not to avoid asking for help during the strike. The new strike comes at a time when the NHS is facing mass doctor walkouts and is unable to absorb huge patient waiting lists.
Executives from Britain's National Health System are concerned about the impact of this strike in the middle of the winter season, explaining that “almost all services will be affected“, mainly in emergencies. “The mobilization will not only have a huge impact on planned care delivery, but comes on top of a range of seasonal pressures such as coronavirus, flu and staff absences due to illness,” Powis said.
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A qualified doctor earns around £32,000 (€37,000) in his first year of work, according to the UK government. According to the British Medical Association (BMA), which counts in its ranks 46,000 qualified doctors, their wages have fallen by almost a quarter since 2008taking into account inflation.
In the autumn the government negotiated for five weeks with specialist doctors in an attempt to de-escalate the situation ahead of winter. In early December offered them a 3% increase on top of 8.8% on average which they had agreed on in the summer.
But for the BMA union, “the government has not appeared able to present a credible proposal on wages”, submitting a proposal that does not compensate for the reduction in purchasing power.
“We spent the holiday season hoping to get the 'final proposal' that the Ministry of Health had promised last year. Unfortunately, this did not happen,” said representatives of the BMA's board of specialist doctors, Mr Robert Lawrenson and Vivek Trivedi.
“We are ready for new talks, but the first thing that needs to be done is to end this strike,” a Downing Street spokesman said yesterday, Tuesday, stressing that during the three-day strike in December 88,000 appointments were cancelled. Then, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had described the continuation of the protests as “very disappointing” accusing doctors of causing even longer waiting lists.
Qualified doctors recently received a raise from 6% to 19.6%which has not yet been endorsed by the BMA.
Since mid-2022, many strikes have taken place in Britain in various industries due to the economic crisis in the country. THE inflationwhich for a long time remained above 10%, fell in November to 3.9%.
Source: News Beast
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