Junior doctors in England back more strike action

Junior doctors in England will continue their industrial action over a long-running pay dispute for the next six months after an overwhelming vote in favor of more strikes.

Doctors' representative body the British Medical Association, or BMA, said 98 percent of members who voted had backed the proposal, which will see the mandate for action lasting until Sept 19.

Nearly half of the doctors in the National Health Service, or NHS, in England are junior doctors, a job title that means they have completed medical degrees and are qualified and on their way to gaining the experience needed to become a general practitioner, rather than any limited level of medical expertise.

In February, they walked out in a five-day protest, which was the 10th time they had taken action since the start of the pay dispute in March last year.

The BMA says pay offers made by the government have been insufficient, as pay rises dating back to 2008 have been below inflation. There was a temporary halt to strikes in October for more negotiations to take place, but they ended without any progress being made.

"The government believed it could ignore, delay, and offer excuses long enough that we would simply give up. That attitude has now led to the NHS wasting 3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) covering the strikes," said a statement from the co-chairs of the BMA's junior doctors committee, Robert Laurenson and Vivek Trivedi. "This is more than double the cost of settling our whole claim, and as we see in the results of today's ballot, delaying tactics will not work. Doctors are still determined to see their pay cuts reversed, and they are willing to keep striking another six months to achieve that."

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care called the extension of strike action "disappointing".

"We have already given junior doctors a pay rise of up to 10.3 percent this financial year and made clear in previous negotiations that further investment was available," the spokesperson said. "Overall NHS waiting lists have decreased for four months in a row, but further strikes will impede this progress, and more than 1.4 million appointments and operations have now been rescheduled since industrial action began."

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, the group that represents hospital managers, called the development a "worrying escalation", adding to other elements of dissatisfaction within the NHS.

"With today's results underlining the sheer strength of feeling among junior doctors, trust leaders are now facing anxious waits on three fronts, with consultants voting on whether to accept their new deal, and specialist, associate specialist and specialty doctors being surveyed on their rejected deal," she said.