Doctors vote to take industrial action: British Medical Association Ballot papers were sent to 103,000 doctors across the UK from Monday 14 May. There were six separate ballots, for: general practitioners; consultant doctors; junior doctors; staff associate, specialist and specialty doctors; occupational medicine doctors; and public health and community health doctors. The action is likely to involve doctors attending their normal workplace and providing all urgent and emergency care, but postponing non-urgent work for one or more 24-hour periods. For GPs this would mean they would not take advanced bookings for appointments on the day of action but would be in their surgeries to see urgent cases. Doctors must give their employers one week's notice of action and legally it must be held within four weeks, which puts the 24-hours of industrial action if it goes ahead, between June 6th and 27th.