Junior doctors in England announce five-day strike over pay demand
"Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes," the co-chairs of the British Medical Association's (BMA) resident doctors committee said in a statement.
Junior doctors, also known as resident doctors, are taking industrial action after being offered an average 5.4% pay rise by the government, far below the 29% they say is necessary to address years of salary erosion in real terms.
The doctors had accepted a 22% pay rise last year covering 2023-2025, which ended months of previous strikes.
The new strikes threaten to once again disrupt thousands of appointments and procedure at Britain's hospitals just as the government said it had started to improve services at the state-funded National Health Service (NHS).
The BMA said it had met Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Wednesday but that the government wanted to focus on improving the non-pay elements of doctors' work.
Streeting said in a letter to the trade union, published on the government website on Wednesday, that the government could not "go further" on pay this year and that he was disappointed by the threat of more strike action.
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