Junior doctors in England start five-day strike

Junior doctors in England have started a five-day strike – the longest walkout over pay to date, according to NHS chiefs. 

Patients will see significant disruption as the strike will run until 07:00 on Tuesday 18 July. 

Thousands of planned appointments are set to be postponed while more senior doctors fill in to provide emergency care, before going on strike themselves next week on Thursday and Friday. 

People can still call 999 for life-threatening emergencies.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive of NHS Providers which represents trusts, said patients would feel the impact.

He said: “The continuous period of industrial action is really damaging for the NHS in terms of first and foremost patients, but also cost.

“The last junior doctors strike cost the NHS in terms of direct cost around a £100m, and then of course there’s the impact on progress towards delivering waiting list reduction, so this is really difficult and challenging, and we do need urgently a resolution to this industrial action.”

Junior doctors say the government refused to talk ahead of the five-day strike, whilst health secretary Steve Barclay said a 35% pay demand from doctors was “unreasonable.”