English doctors on strike in biggest walkout of UK health service
Hospital doctors in England on Thursday started a five-day stoppage over pay and staff retention.
The walkout, unprecedented, is the biggest in the history of the UK’s state-funded National Health Service and is prompting fears for patient safety.
The strike is the latest in eight months of industrial action across the NHS, which is already reeling from a vast pandemic backlog.
Many doctors accused the government of using the doctors’ critical service provision to have its way in the past over staff welfare.
“The NHS has been running on goodwill and now this is the last chance to change that,” said 27-year-old junior doctor Arjan Sing, on a picket line outside London’s University College Hospital.
