Resident doctors in England will walk out for five consecutive days in a dispute over pay, the British Medical Association (BMA) said.
They are scheduled to strike from 7am on 25 July to 7am on 30 July, with the BMA adding it will give the government two weeks to come back to the negotiating table.
BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said in a statement they had met with health secretary Wes Streeting, but the government would not move on pay.
They said the government wanted to focus on non-pay elements instead.
“Without a credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay, we have no choice but to call strikes,” they added in a statement.
“No doctor wants to strike, and these strikes don’t have to go ahead. If Mr Streeting can seriously come to the table in the next two weeks, we can ensure that no disruption is caused.
“The government knows what is needed to avert strikes. The choice is theirs.”
Resident doctors in England, formerly known as junior doctors, voted to strike over pay in a BMA ballot on Tuesday, giving them a mandate for action until January 2026.
Some 90 per cent of voting resident doctors backed strike action, with the BMA reporting a turnout of 55 per cent. The union has said that resident doctors need a pay uplift of 29.2 per cent to reverse “pay erosion” since 2008/09.
In response, Mr Streeting said the proposed strike action is “completely unreasonable”.
“I wrote to the BMA this morning to offer to meet their committee and work with them to improve the working lives of resident doctors. Instead of talking, they’ve announced strikes,” the health secretary said.
“No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9 per cent pay rise only to immediately respond with strikes, and the majority of BMA resident doctors didn’t vote to strike.
“The NHS recovery is hanging by a thread, and the BMA are threatening to pull it. The BMA should abandon their rush to strike and work with us to improve resident doctors’ working lives instead.”
Downing Street said the pay dispute is “not grounds for strike action”, which would have “extremely serious consequences for patients”.
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, warned that five days of strike action with two weeks’ notice “can only be harmful”.
“It’s totally unfair to patients whose care will be cancelled at such short notice just as the NHS was beginning to turn the tide on reducing waiting lists,” he said.
“It shows a lack of respect for colleagues from many other disciplines who received lower pay rises and will now have to cover resident doctors’ work.
“And it is going to divert attention away from improving services to focus on planning to keep services as safe as possible.
“We need cool heads to de-escalate this and remove the threat of further damaging industrial action.”
Previous strikes by resident doctors and other staff groups saw some 1.5 million appointments, procedures and operations postponed as a result.
The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England is currently at its lowest level for two years, according to the latest figures, with an estimated 7.39 million treatments waiting to be carried out at the end of April.
In September, BMA members voted to accept a government pay deal worth 22.3 per cent on average over two years.
And the 2025/26 pay deal saw resident doctors given a 4 per cent uplift plus £750 “on a consolidated basis” – working out as an average pay rise of 5.4 per cent.
The BMA call for a 29.2 per cent uplift is based on retail prices index (RPI) inflation, the measure of average changes in the price of goods and services used by most households.
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