Junior doctors have voted to undertake the longest strike in NHS history next month.
A five-day walkout will take place between Thursday July 13 and Tuesday July 18, in what is believed to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service, according to the British Medical Association (BMA).
The walkout by junior doctors could come just days before consultants strike on July 20 and 21 if their ballot, which closes at the end of this month, is successful and there is no “credible pay offer” from the Government.
During the proposed strikes for July, consultants will provide “Christmas Day cover”, meaning they will continue to provide all emergency services but many routine services will be stopped.
More than 645,000 appointments and operations have been affected in England because of recent NHS strikes.
The BMA is asking for a 35 per cent pay rise for junior doctors to make up for what it says is 15 years of real-term salary cuts.
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee said: “The NHS is one of this country’s proudest achievements and it is shameful that we have a Government seemingly content to let it decline to the point of collapse with decades of real-terms pay cuts to doctors driving them away.
“With the 75th birthday of the NHS just days away, neglect of its workforce has left us with 7.4m people on waiting lists for surgery and procedures, 8,500 unfilled doctors’ posts in hospitals, and doctors who can barely walk down the road without a foreign government tempting them to leave an NHS where they are paid £14 per hour for a country which will pay them properly.
“It has been almost a week since the last round of strikes finished but not once have we heard from Rishi Sunak or Steve Barclay in terms of reopening negotiations since their collapse of our talks and cancelling all scheduled meetings a month ago.
“What better indication of how committed they are to ending this dispute could we have? As their refusal to even discuss pay restoration leads to continued disruption to the health service, more than four-fifths of junior doctors report finding their patients supportive – they understand the value of a fully staffed and resourced NHS.
“We are announcing the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history – but this is not a record that needs to go into the history books. Even now the Government can avert our action by coming to the table with a credible offer on pay restoration. Restoring pay can stem the flow of Australian job adverts in doctors’ social media feeds – and lead to a future 75 years of doctors being paid fairly, in a rebuilt workforce and NHS that this country can continue to be proud of.”