JUNIOR doctors in England are set to strike for three days next month in their increasingly bitter pay dispute, it was announced yesterday.

The British Medical Association (BMA) said the doctors had “no option” and would strike from March 13, having voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action earlier this month.

The BMA said that junior doctors have called on Health Secretary Steve Barclay twice in the past week to meet them urgently, but no date had been set.

A meeting with the government earlier this week yielded nothing in terms of meaningful progress, with Mr Barclay refusing to attend, the BMA added.

NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor warned the health service would struggle to cope in the face of the walkout.

BMA junior doctors’ committee co-chairs Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said patients and public alike need to know the blame “lies squarely at the government’s door."

In a joint statment, they said: “Make no mistake, this strike was absolutely in the government’s gift to avert; they know it, we know it and our patients also need to know it.

“We are demoralised, angry and no longer willing to work for wages that have seen a real-terms decline of over 26 per cent in the past 15 years.

“This, together with the stress and exhaustion of working in an NHS in crisis, has brought us to this moment, brought us to a 72-hour walkout.

“How, in all conscience, can the Health Secretary continue to put his head in the sand and hope that by not meeting with us, this crisis of his government’s making, will somehow just disappear?”

The British Dental Association also announced that dentists working in hospitals employed under the junior contract would join the 72-hour walkout after voting for industrial action.

British Dental Association chairman Eddie Crouch said: “This small but important group of dentists are working to the same contracts as their medical colleagues, and like them are not worth a penny less than they were 15 years ago.

“Our members will down drills until the government comes back to the table with a serious offer.”

BMA Scotland will also ballot junior doctors for strike action from late March.

Miriam Deakin, director of policy at NHS Providers, warned the strikes “will have significant ramifications for patient care.”