Junior doctors launch their TENTH strike in just one year as thousands of medics take to picket lines for 5 days

JUNIOR doctors have launched their tenth strike in just one year.

Thousands of medics are set to take to the picket lines for five days in yet another walkout over pay.

Medical staff started their strike at 7am on Saturday.

It is expected to last until midnight on February 28, the British Medical Association said.

The union said it was forced to call for more industrial action after the Government “failed to meet the deadline to put an improved pay offer on the table”.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the next set of strike dates showed junior doctors are not “ready to be reasonable”.

It comes amid calls from health chiefs for unions and ministers to settle the dispute.

Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: “The Government could have stopped these strikes by simply making a credible pay offer for junior doctors in England to begin reversing the pay cuts they have inflicted upon us for more than a decade.

“The same Government could have even accepted our offer to delay this round of strike action to give more space for talks – all we asked for in return was a short extension of our mandate to strike.

“The fact that ministers have chosen strike action over what could have been the end of this year’s pay dispute is disappointing to say the least.

“All doctors are looking for is to reverse pay cuts and be paid the same, in real terms, as in 2008 – which looks like around £21 per hour instead of the current £15 per hour.

“This is the way to a better-staffed, more effective health service, and all the Government has to do to call off these strikes is come forward with a credible way of getting there.”