Junior doctors are set to make history today as they stage the first ever NHS strike to hit emergency care amid the ongoing row over pay and conditions.
Despite a last-ditch plea by health secretary Jeremy Hunt, junior medics will down tools from 8am until 5pm with an identical day of action set for Wednesday.
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Accident and emergency wards, urgent maternity services, resuscitation and mental health crisis teams will also be hit by the all-out action.
But essential care will be provided by consultants during the strikes, so emergency care is expected to operate as normal.
NHS England said “military level” contingency planning had been put in place to ensure emergency care would remain covered by senior medics.
The British Medical Association, which represents the doctors in the dispute, has offered to call off the industrial action if Hunt revokes his threat to impose the controversial new contract at the centre of the row.
Chair of its junior doctors committee Dr Johann Malawana said: "No doctor wants to take any action.
“They want to be in work, treating patients, but by refusing to get back around the negotiating table the government has left them with no choice but to take short-term action to protect patient care in the long term."
Hunt has rejected calls to negotiate, and also dismissed as “opportunism” a cross-party effort to resolve the dispute by piloting the new terms first.
He has described the planned strikes as “extreme” and called on the BMA to rethink.
Public support
Meanwhile, a new poll revealed last night that most of the public support the strike.
The poll showed that 57% of adults in England support the strike, while a quarter oppose it.
That compares to just 44% who said they would support the strike if emergency care was withheld when asked by the same pollsters in January.
However, the strike had the support of 64% of the public last month, when emergency care was still being provided.
Most people still think the government is most at fault for the ongoing dispute, but an increasing number think ministers and doctors are equally to blame.
More than a third – 35% – blame both sides equally, up from 28% in March and 18% in February.
Some 54% say the government is most at fault, but that is down from 57% in March and 64% in February.
The proportion saying the doctors are at fault has also fallen to 8%, from 11% in March and 13% in February.