On Tuesday 12th January Junior doctors are set to strike, after some 98% of them voted in support of the protest.

The first thing to understand is what a Junior doctor is. There are about 53,000 Junior doctors in total in the UK. To become a Junior doctor, an individual must first train for 5-6 years in medical school, before completing a 2 year course in general surgery and general medicine, after which point a further 3-8 years is spent specialising into a profession, such as a GP or Consultant. Up until the point a doctor becomes a Consultant, they are known as a Junior doctor. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem too Junior to me.

Junior doctors already work up to 100 hours per week. To put that into perspective, the EU rules dictate that a worker in the UK must not work any more than 48 hours per week. So already, Junior doctors are working for over double this limit, therefore putting patients’ lives at risk. It’s also not unusual for Junior doctors to work 12-13 hours shifts in one go, or to work 7 consecutive night shifts. All the while, they’re trying to revise for the exams that can cost thousands of pounds, whilst trying to write research papers so that they can progress in their training.

Many Junior doctors have made it clear that they don’t expect to get paid for the extra work they put in. That’s not what they’re fighting for. Junior doctors oppose the new government contract because, although there is a proposed 11% rise in basic pay for doctors, this is in exchange for more evening and weekend work without overtime pay. According to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the changes aim to make it cheaper to employ extra doctors at weekends, as part of the government’s plan to expand NHS services, including having certain departments open 24/7. Junior doctors say they will be expected to work approximately 30% more hours. Despite the claim that Junior doctors’ pay will rise by 11%, there are concerns that some doctors will end up being paid less, and that restrictions on the number of hours worked will not be strongly enough enforced. Additionally, Junior doctors’ pay will only be protected until 2019, so there are also fears over what will happen afterwards.

When the government presented this contract to the Junior doctors, 99% of them were against it. However, the government decided they would go ahead with it anyway and, as a consequence, 16,000 Junior doctors applied for positions abroad in late 2015. Moreover, it is estimated that one third of GPs plan to retire in the next 5 years. This means that there is going to be a serious shortage in doctors unless drastic change is made.

On top of this, the government signed one of its largest ever privatisation deals in March 2015, worth over £780 million, whilst delivering £20 billion worth of cuts, further demoralising Junior doctors and further diminishing their resources.

There has been much controversy over the planned strike action, but I can tell you with absolute confidence that I support the Junior doctors in their plight to save the NHS, and ensure that it remains one of the best free healthcare systems in the world. People who work in the healthcare profession do so because they care about saving lives. So much so that they donate their own lives to the cause. They’re more than aware that striking will put many patients’ lives at risk. They wouldn’t be striking unless they really thought that it was absolutely necessary. They’ve decided that it is worth the sacrifice of striking for one day in order to prevent putting patients’ lives at risk for the next 4 years, and I fully support them in this decision.

If you want to help them if their fight, there are three main actions you can take:

Write to your local MP Organise local rallies Join them at their marches

To quote a Junior doctor who’s video I watched the other day: ‘Save the NHS, so that when it’s your turn, it can save you’.