'Significant disruption' as junior doctors in UK strike over pay dispute

Junior doctors in England have launched a new strike that officials say will disrupt health services amid a continued dispute with the Government over pay and labor conditions.

The four-day strike by junior doctors, which began on Friday at 7:00 am (0600 GMT), hits the Britons as health leaders have said the government's failure to deliver on its promises has reached its tipping point.

"This latest round of junior doctors strikes will again significantly disrupt services for patients," UK's state-funded National Health Service (NHS) medical director Stephen Powis said.

He said the impact of the latest strike of the junior doctors, which make up about half of the doctors' force in UK hospitals, will be worse than previous instances of industrial action.

The development comes as millions of patients in England are registered on waiting lists to start medical treatment in hospitals due to a large pandemic backlog and continuous strikes as health workers demand more pay amid the UK's cost-of-living crisis.

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"The additional challenge this time is that organizations are unable to use agency workers to cover staff out on strike," Powis said.

In past months, UK nurses, ambulance staff, and other medical workers have all joined the industrial action across the NHS, mounting more pressure on the government to address the economic woes and financial stress on the public health service workers.

The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents the strikers, says the take-home pay of junior doctors has plunged by 26 percent in the last 15 years.

BMA said it will continue to campaign for better pay for its members, after branding the public sector pay rise announced by the government in July as insufficient.

Consultant doctors in England will also walk out later this month, and again in September, if the government continues to “refuse to agree to pay talks”, the BMA said.

The junior doctors' four-day strike will end at 7:00 am (0600 GMT) on Tuesday.

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Tens of thousands of junior doctors across England have begun a five-day strike.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has failed to cut record waiting lists for routine hospital treatment in England.

According to NHS figures, close to 778,000 medical appointments have been postponed across the health service in England due to strike action since December.

Waiting lists for routine procedures such as hip and knee replacements rose by about 100,000 in June, NHS reported.

NHS Providers’ Chief Executive Sir Julian Hartley said staff were “pulling out all the stops” to cut queues — one of Sunak’s five “people’s priorities” ahead of the general election expected next year, in which health is set to be a key battleground.

However,  Hartley cautioned that with consultants planning to join picket lines in two weeks’ time, the number of rescheduled appointments and operations could be “close to 1mn” by the end of August.

He warned that the failure of the government to deliver on its promises of better healthcare services in the UK could be the tipping point in the next elections, shifting power to a Labor Government.

“The sheer volume of planned treatment being put back . . . will make it almost impossible for trusts to cut waiting lists as much as the government wants,” said Hartley. “We could be close to a tipping point . . . It’s vital that the government and unions find a breakthrough urgently.”

UK Health Minister Steve Barclay, however, remained defiant to the junior doctors' request for increased pay.

He insisted the pay increase was sufficient and urged the BMA to "end its strikes immediately."

The pay rise of 6 percent with an additional lump sum of £1,250 ($1,590) announced by the government in mid-July was "final", according to Barclay.

Barclay said the doctors should stop the strike for the patients' sake. "Patients are bearing the brunt of the impact of continuous strikes across the NHS, and further action by the BMA will cause more appointments and procedures to be postponed."

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