HEALTH SECRETARY Wes Streeting and doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) will continue talks this week in a last-ditch bid to avoid planned strike action.

The union announced on Wednesday that resident doctors — formerly termed junior doctors — in England will walk out for five days on Friday July 25 in a dispute over pay.

The BMA is calling for a pay rise of 29.2 per cent to claw back the real-terms pay cuts doctors have faced since 2008.

Mr Streeting has called the move “completely unreasonable,” and told the Commons on Thursday: “We have put the NHS on the road to recovery, but we all know that the NHS is still hanging by a thread and that the BMA is threatening to pull it.”

BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan said: “We have been clear throughout the dispute that we are happy to continue discussions to find a solution that both our members will find acceptable and that can prevent any strike action having to take place.

“We are glad that the Secretary of State has taken us up on our offer and we look forward to constructive discussions, in the hope that we can make progress that would be sufficient to support suspending the planned strike.”

Last September, BMA members voted to accept a pay deal worth 22.3 per cent on average over the previous two years.

They were awarded a 4 per cent rise plus £750 “on a consolidated basis” for this financial year, an average pay rise of 5.4 per cent.