Thousands of junior doctors go on strike across England

The Department of Health insists that average working hours for junior doctors will remain the same, at around 48 hours a week and that they will receive an approximate 11% increase to their basic pay.

He said planning is already under way for the next proposed strike and apologised in advance for any inconvenience to patients who found their outpatient appointments or operations cancelled.

The British Medical Association said 2,000 of its members took part in 24 hours of strike action in Merseyside on Tuesday.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the new working arrangements are needed if the NHS is to move to seven-day-a-week working, a priority he’s set for the health service.

If there is an all-out strike by junior doctors, nobody will die because of it? The BMA is concerned about pay for weekend working, career progression and safeguards to protect doctors from being over-worked.

A spokesman for the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) said talks would resume on Thursday at 10am, continuing on Friday.

Thousands of junior doctors walked off the job Tuesday in England in a bitter dispute over pay and working conditions – the first such strike in 40 years.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Councillor for Brookvale and Kings Furlong, Jack Cousens joined his fellow Labour councillors on the picket line to show his support for the junior doctors.

He added: “It is heartening that people understand why we have done this, it was such a hard decision to strike but the public understand why we did this”. This will be followed by the first-ever full walkout between 8am and 5pm on 10 February.

Danny Mortimer, the head of NHS Employers, which is representing the Government in negotiations, said he was “desperate” to avoid a repeat of the strike.

Bridget Riley, who refused to return to work at the hospital, said that Junior Doctors should only be ordered to work if the incident was “unpredictable”, rather than something that was known about on Monday.

The Royal College of Midwives has pledged its support for the junior doctors, saying: “We stand shoulder to shoulder with our NHS colleagues on this issue, and the Royal College of Midwives offers its support to the junior doctors. Better use of all the available services will help to ensure that only patients with a real emergency come to hospital, giving us more time to dedicate to those patients who really need us”.