Doctors in England will go on strike for five days in November in a row over jobs and pay, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.
Resident doctors will walk out for consecutive days from 7am from November 14 to 19 after failing to reach an agreement with Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Jack Fletcher, chair of the Resident Doctors Committee, urged Mr Streeting to return to the negotiating table.
He added that the situation was “disappointing but not unredeemable”.
Mr Fletcher said: “This is not where we wanted to be. We have spent the last week in talks with Government, pressing the health secretary to end the scandal of doctors going unemployed … a situation which cannot go on.
“We talked with the Government in good faith – keen for the health secretary to see that a deal that included options to gradually reverse the cuts to pay over several years, giving newly trained doctors a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.
“We hoped the Government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the public and our patients and would also help stop our doctors leaving the NHS.
“Better employment prospects and restoring pay – are a credible way forward that would work for doctors, work for Government and work for our patients. Sadly, while we want to get such a deal done, the Government seemingly, does not, leaving us with little option but to call for strike action.”
Resident doctors, previously named junior doctors, make up around half of all doctors in the NHS.
They have anywhere up to eight years of experience as a hospital doctor depending on speciality or up to three years in general practice.
This is a breaking story, more to follow.