The British Medical Association has announced that junior doctors in England will be striking from the 24th to the 28th of February.
According to the union, the government had not met the deadline to increase their pay. The demand was for a 35% pay increase, which ministers previously rejected.
The BMA offered the health secretary to extend the strike mandate for a short period, meaning that the resolution talks would continue.
In response, Victoria Atkins, the Health and Social Care Secretary, refused to extend the mandate and stated that the scheduled protests were not ‘ready to be reasonable’, but she still wanted to resolve the actions.
In her statement, Atkins said: “We already provided them with a pay increase of up to 10.3% and were prepared to go further. We urged them to make an offer to their members, but they refused. We are also open to further discussions on improving doctors’ and the wider workforce’s working lives.”
Junior doctors’ pay was increased with 9% average last year, and at the end of 2023, there were talks about a possible 3% rise on top of the previous increase, but no deal was reached.
According to the BBC, the upcoming action will be the 10th strike organised by junior doctors since March last year. Moreover, the last strike in January was the longest in NHS’s history, with more than 100,000 medical appointments cancelled.