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October 13, 2024
Junior doctors will strike for three days in December if the ballot comes back in favour of industrial action, it was revealed today.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has announced the proposed dates and type of action ahead of the ballot result next week.
If there is a yes vote, junior doctors will only provide emergency care for 24 hours from 8am on December 1, followed by full walkouts from 8am to 5pm on December 8 and 16.
The possible strike is over Government plans to impose a controversial new contract on junior doctors next year as part of moves to create a ‘seven-day’ NHS service across the country.
But the most disputed clause in the new contract remains a reduction in junior doctors’ overtime payments – which it has been estimated could slash their salaries by 30 per cent.
Whether the action goes ahead will be depend on the result of the BMA’s ballot of the 30,000 juniors it represents, which closes next Wednesday at 5pm. The result will become public the following day.
The proposed dates and type of action discussed and approved today by the BMA council are as follows:
Emergency care only – 8am, Tuesday, December 1 to 8am Wednesday December 2, 2015
Full walk out – 8am to 5pm, Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Full walk out – 8am to 5pm, Wednesday, December 16, 2015
In an email to all members in England, BMA council chairman Mark Porter said: ‘We are releasing this information at this early stage because we want to give as much notice as possible.
‘It sounds like an oxymoron when talking about industrial action, but we genuinely want to minimise any disruption to other NHS staff and, above all, to patients.
‘It sounds like an oxymoron when talking about industrial action, but we genuinely want to minimise any disruption to other NHS staff and, above all, to patients.
‘Our dispute is with the Government and our ballot for industrial action is a last resort in the face of their continued intransigence.’
The union has refused to get back around the negotiating table with the Government in the row over a new contract, which is set to be imposed from next summer on doctors working up to consultant level.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has made a bid to avert strikes with a fresh deal, including an 11 per cent rise in basic pay and overtime pay after 7pm on Saturday evenings, a concession on the previous 10pm.
Flexible pay premiums would be applied to more specialities than just general practice and A&E care, with acute medical ward staff and psychiatrists benefiting, he said.
Mr Hunt argued that just 1 per cent of doctors would lose pay because of the deal and those were limited to doctors working too many hours already.
He said maximum working hours per week would fall from 91 to 72 under the new deal.
Johann Malawana, the BMA’s junior doctor committee chairman, said the increase in basic pay was misleading as it would be ‘offset by changes to pay for unsocial hours – devaluing the vital work junior doctors do at evenings and weekends.’
Source Mail Online