Doctors walkout as contract row goes on

British doctors have staged their first strike in 40 years over government plans to reform pay and conditions for working anti-social hours.

The dispute revolves around plans to increase doctors’ basic pay but cut extra pay for working unsociable hours and talks have stalled, which has prompted the strike action.

Doctors say they are taking the action because the government has failed to address key concerns over contractual safeguards on safe working, and recognition of unsocial hours.

Junior doctors returned to work after a 24-hour walkout which led to the cancellation of around 4,000 operations and thousands of cancelled appointments.

Dr Johann Malawana, chair of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said the move by Sandwell and a letter from NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh amounted to ” last minute, inept and heavy-handed attempts to bully junior doctors”.

Waving banners saying “The NHS needs saving and they’re not listening but we’ve got something to say”, demonstrators formed picket lines outside hospitals beginning in the early morning.

The doctors are planning a 48-hour stoppage later this month and a full withdrawal of labor, including emergency care, for nine hours on February 10.

“We are really against detrimental changes that would affect the safety of patients and the fair treatment of current and future doctors”.

The strike follows a dispute between the British Medical Council and Department of Health over proposed new contracts which the doctors believe are unfair.

NHS England said only 39 percent of a possible 26,000 junior doctors reported for work Tuesday, and that more than 3,400 procedures had to be postponed.

“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”.

The Government says its changes are necessary in its aim for a “truly seven-day NHS”, while claiming that only around one per cent of doctors would lose pay.

A 27-year-old woman – who wished to remain anonymous – who has been a junior doctor for three years said: “If they are not bringing in any more doctors than the service will be more thinly spread than it already us”.

One junior doctor who supported colleagues at the picket line at South Tyneside hospital said the industrial action had been very well received.

Officials said that thousands of doctors took part in the strike, which was the first strike by doctors in decades.