England Junior Doctors to Strike for Six Days from April 7

Resident doctors in England will stage a six-day strike starting at 7 a.m. on April 7 and ending at 6:59 a.m. on April 13, the British Medical Association announced Wednesday, marking the 15th walkout in an ongoing dispute over pay and staffing shortages within the National Health Service.

The industrial action, set to begin shortly after the Easter bank holiday, follows the collapse of negotiations between the BMA and the government. The union cited a recent shift in the government's position during the final weeks of talks, where proposed pay increases were to be spread over three years rather than implemented more immediately. This came alongside a recommendation from the Doctors and Dentists Review Body for a 3.5 percent pay uplift, which the BMA described as insufficient to address long-term erosion in real-terms earnings.

Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA's Resident Doctors Committee, said the union had negotiated in good faith for weeks to resolve simultaneous crises in pay and jobs 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," Fletcher stated. He...