London: Tens of thousands of junior doctors in England have started six days of industrial action over pay disputes, marking the longest strike in the National Health Service’s (NHS) 75-year history.
“All we need is a credible offer we can put to members and we can call off these strikes,” the British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee co-chairs Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi said in a statement.
“Morale across the health service is at an all-time low,” they added, noting that 15 years of pay erosion have meant a 26-per cent pay cut in real terms for “an increasingly undervalued workforce who are overstretched”, reports Xinhua news agency.
The walkouts came after talks collapsed between the government and BMA members, who have been calling for a 35-per cent pay increase.
In September 2023, NHS doctors in England began to receive pay rises, with first year doctors in training awarded 10.3 per cent, while the average junior doctor got 8.8 per cent.
The government has resisted the idea of higher rises due to fears over worsening inflation.
“We have sought to come to a fair resolution — fair for the taxpayer, fair for hardworking doctors and health workers,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday.
The strikes have put mounting pressure on an already overstretched medical system.
During the junior doctors’ last walkout in late December 2023, more than 86,000 inpatient and outpatient appointments had to be rescheduled, according to NHS England.
“The action will not only have an enormous impact on planned care, but comes on top of a host of seasonal pressures such as Covid, flu, and staff absences due to sickness,” NHS National Medical Director Stephen Powis said on Tuesday.
–IANS