UK Doctors Begin Five-Day Strike Despite PM\u2019s Plea
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Thousands of UK doctors launched a five-day strike early Friday after talks with the Labour government for a new pay increase failed to reach a deal.<\/strong><\/p>\n Doctors were out on picket lines outside hospitals after negotiations with the government went down the wire late Thursday, without reaching an accord.<\/p>\n The move comes after the\u00a0doctors accepted a pay rise offer totalling 22.3 percent over two years in September, soon after Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour party took power.<\/p>\n Resident doctors \u2014\u00a0those below consultant level \u2014 have said they felt they had \u201cno choice\u201d but to strike again to reverse \u201cpay erosion\u201d since 2008.<\/p>\n Starmer on Friday appealed to the doctors, saying patients were being put at risk and the strikes would \u201ccause real damage\u201d.<\/p>\n Launching a strike \u201cwill mean everyone loses,\u201d Starmer wrote in the Times, highlighting the added strain it would put on the already struggling National Health <\/a>Service (NHS).<\/p>\n He appealed to the doctors not to \u201cfollow\u201d their union, the British Medical Association (BMA) \u201cdown this damaging road. Our NHS and your patients need you\u201d .<\/p>\n \u201cLives will be blighted by this decision,\u201d Starmer warned.<\/p>\n But the junior doctors have said their pay in real terms has eroded more than 21 percent over the past two decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not working 21 percent less hard so why should our pay suffer?\u201d said the co-chairs of the BMA\u2019s resident doctors committee Melissa Ryan and Ross Nieuwoudt in a statement.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s doctors\u2019 strikes, which saw tens of thousands of appointments cancelled and treatment delayed, were among a series of public and private sector walk-outs over pay and conditions as inflation soared.<\/p>\n