The latest round of industrial action will start just after the Easter long weekend
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Resident doctors in England are to strike for six days from April 7 in the ongoing row over pay and jobs, the British Medical Association has announced.
The latest round of industrial action will start just after the Easter long weekend from 7am on April 7 until 6.59am on April 13, the union said.
The doctors’ union urged the Government to “act fast” to prevent the strikes from happening.
It comes after doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body the DDRB recommended a 3.5% uplift for doctors.
It will be the 15th round of strikes by resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – in England since 2023.
BMA Resident Doctors Committee chairman Jack Fletcher said: “We have been negotiating in good faith for weeks to try and end the simultaneous pay and jobs crises for resident doctors.
“Frustratingly we had been making good progress right up until the point, in the last two weeks, when the Government began to shift the goalposts.
“As talks progressed it became clear that the money proposed for pay increases was now going to be spread over three years.
“This is combined with today’s pay review body (DDRB) recommendation of a 3.5% uplift pointing to yet more years in which our pay, at best, barely treads water.
“We have made abundantly clear throughout this dispute that our aim is pay restoration, and any deal that did not move us substantially in that direction was not going to fly.”
He continued: “We cannot ignore that, thanks to global events, economic indicators now point to years of greatly increased inflation.
“We are simply not going to put an offer to doctors that risks locking in further erosion of pay at a time when doctors continue to leave the UK for other countries.
“We are not closing the door on talks.
“We remain willing to negotiate and are eager to get a deal done if we can simply recapture the early positive spirit of negotiations.
“No strikes need to happen, but Government will need to act fast to prevent them.”
