Tens of thousands of junior doctors have started a 72-hour strike across England in a dispute with the government over pay.

Many patients will have operations and appointments cancelled as the three days of action brings further widespread disruption to the NHS.

But supporters of the strike say action is needed to stop junior doctors leaving the NHS, which is putting lives at risk.

The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling on the government for pay restoration as it says the wage for junior doctors has fallen 26% since 2008/09, with newly qualified medics making less than a barista in a coffee shop.

An advertising campaign launched by the trade union says: “Pret a Manger has announced it will pay up to £14.10 per hour. A junior doctor makes just £14.09.

“Thanks to this government you can make more serving coffee than saving patients. This week junior doctors will take strike action so they are paid what they are worth.”

Junior doctors make up around 45% of the NHS’s medical workforce and consultants and other medics have been brought in to provide cover in areas such as A&E.

More than 100,000 patient appointments have already been postponed this winter after nurses took strike action in a dispute with the government over pay, according to NHS figures.

Professor Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, told Times Radio that cancer care is likely to be affected by the strikes, saying the NHS is doing “everything we can to ensure that urgent cancer procedures go ahead but, unfortunately, even some of those may be affected this week”.

Picket lines formed outside hospitals throughout England on the first day of what will be the longest-ever period of industrial action by junior doctors.

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Hamish Bain joined strike action outside University College Hospital London.

He has been a junior doctor working in London for more than five years and has seen colleagues leaving the NHS for better-paid jobs abroad.

When asked why he has chosen to stay, he told Sky News: “Because fundamentally I believe in the NHS, and believe everyone should have access to good quality health care, regardless of how much money they have.”

‘Absolute national scandal’

Professor Philip Banfield, the BMA’s council chair, joined a picket line outside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and said: “It’s the refusal of government to listen to junior doctors and the crisis unfolding in the NHS.

“We have the worst crisis in the NHS that I have ever known and it’s seeing junior doctors leave in their droves.

“The junior doctors’ strike is so sad to see but they feel they have been driven to this.”

He added: “What is going on day in, day out is that patients are dying.

“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that between 300 and 500 people are dying unnecessarily, because of the state of emergency departments across the UK, per week.

“That is an absolute national scandal.”

The government has been criticised for its handling of the pay disputes, which have been escalating for months.

Talks between the government and health unions will continue this week in the hope of a breakthrough.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “It is very disappointing that the junior doctors’ union are not engaging with the government.

“We are actually having constructive dialogue with other unions who have accepted our offer to come in and talk through it.”

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