TORY Health Secretary Steve Barclay cancelled today’s strike crisis talks with doctors’ leaders to give media interviews, the British Medical Association (BMA) charged.

The union, which represents junior doctors currently voting on national strike action over pay, said that Mr Barclay missed planned morning talks and a further meeting “is not yet agreed.”

Earlier, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, following discussions with other health unions on Monday, he would be meeting the doctors’ unions again later on Thursday.