Strikes by junior doctors in England
A 24-hour
walk-out next Tuesday will be followed by a 48-hour strike on 26 January, and a
third day in February in the contract dispute.
The strike
action is likely to lead to thousands of non-emergency operations and hospital
appointments being cancelled in the coming days.
But despite
the failure to reach a deal, both sides have already indicated they want to
keep negotiating ahead of next week's walk-out.
It comes
after the British Medical Association agreed to cancel three strikes last month
to re-enter talks with the government.
The union
had until midnight to decide whether it still wanted to take industrial action
- or face having to re-ballot its members.
This is
because of trade union rules which only allow industrial action in set
timescales and require unions to give a week's notice of any walk-out.
The strike
details announced are:
- 08:00 Tuesday 12 January to
08:00 Wednesday 13 January (emergency care will be staffed)
- 08:00 Tuesdays 26 January to
08:00 Thursday 28 January (emergency care will be staffed)
- 08:00 to 17:00 Wednesday 10
February (full walk-out)
The
development came after both sides sat down on Monday for the first time since
the Christmas break.
Weeks of
negotiations had taken place right up until Christmas Eve following the
intervention of conciliation service Acas.
Those talks
marked the first time both sides had met formally since the break down of the
original talks in autumn 2014.
What is the dispute about?
- The row between junior doctors
and the government is over a new contract
- Talks broke down in 2014, but
the dispute has escalated since the summer after ministers said they would
impose the deal
- Ministers offered doctors an
11% rise in basic pay last year, but that was offset by curbs to other
elements of the pay package, including unsociable hours payments
- The government has said the
changes are need to create more seven-days services, but the BMA has
warned it could lead to doctors being over-worked because safeguards to
keep a lid on excessive hours are being weakened
Source: BBC
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