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Junior doctors have embarked on their latest round of strikes in England after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak failed to avert further action by committing to restoring their pay, the BMA have said.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: ‘It is immensely disappointing that the Prime Minister has once again failed to deliver for his constituents and NHS patients.

‘The PM has cynically blamed his own failure to get waiting lists down on striking doctors, all the while dragging out talks in the full knowledge that it was going to cause yet more strike action. By first calling an election and then refusing any attempt to engage he has shown he clearly had no intention of sorting this dispute out in good time.

‘No doctor wants to strike – not this time nor the ten rounds of action before it. We have been forced to this position by more than a decade of savage pay cuts, and nothing would make us happier than returning to work this week with a commitment to pay restoration. Once again though, the Prime Minister has failed to take the opportunity in front of him. His own ministers now admit that the failure to negotiate with us has been a terrible mistake, acknowledging that the only way to solve this dispute was by getting round the table and discussing pay with us. Now, at the very last, we ask the Prime Minister to consider whether they might have a point.’