THE British Medical Association (BMA) and Health Minister Andrew Stephenson will meet this week to discuss next steps over the junior doctors’ bitter pay row, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said today.

Junior doctors in England are currently being balloted to see whether they want to continue strike action after talks with ministers broke down last year, resulting in two major strikes shortly before Christmas and after new year.

Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, said they sent a letter requesting that talks resume — but talks have only been arranged after “almost three weeks of silence from the government we could have been using to find an end to this dispute.”

Ms Atkins also told BBC Breakfast that she “genuinely” thinks that a deal can be reached with consultants in England. BMA members narrowly rejected a pay offer last week, while Hospital Consultants & Specialists Association members rejected the deal earlier this month.