‘If we keep going like this, we'll have no doctors left.’ This is the message from junior doctors on the picket line of a four-day industrial strike. Speaking outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital, they said the NHS is facing an exodus of doctors unless conditions are improved: ‘It’s about improving the NHS and improving patients’ safety, improving worker retention and making workers feel valued again.’. Their comments were repeated outside hospitals everywhere by junior doctors claiming wage cuts of over 25% since 2008/9. They want a 35% pay rise. Downing Street said the proposed increase was ‘unreasonable and not affordable for the British taxpayer’. A London junior doctor, who is not striking, said the 25% cuts are based on questionable assumptions. The Nuffield Trust calculates the 8% pay cuts up to 2021-22 based on actual earnings. Also, many junior doctors opt to work part-time, then pick up additional shifts at high locum rates. A junior doctor in London earns in the region of £55,000, and that’s before locum shifts.