Junior doctors to stage fresh 96-hour strike next month
Junior doctors in England are to stage a four-day walkout from Friday August 11 to Tuesday August 15, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.
The union said the walkout was the ‘next round of monthly strike action’ as it called for the Government to return to the negotiating table.
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said in a statement: ‘It should never have got to the point where we needed to announce a fifth round of strike action.
‘Our message today remains the same: act like a responsible government, come to the table to negotiate with us in good faith, and with a credible offer these strikes need not go ahead at all.
‘The Prime Minister has told us that talks are over but it is not for Rishi Sunak to decide that negotiations are over before he has even stepped in the room.
‘This dispute will end only at the negotiating table. If the Prime Minister was hoping to demoralise and divide our profession with his actions, he will be disappointed.
‘Consultants, along with our specialist and associate specialist colleagues, have covered crucial services during our strikes and those same consultants were also on their own picket lines last week.
‘Mutual solidarity has been on display at hospital picket lines up and down the country: this is a profession united in its refusal to accept yet another pay cut.
‘Junior doctors are not going anywhere however much Government might wish we would. The facts have not changed: we have lost more than a quarter of our pay in fifteen years and we are here to get it back.’
Got a story? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. Or you can submit your videos and pictures here.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Follow Metro.co.uk on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news updates. You can now also get Metro.co.uk articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here.