Consultants in England are due to strike next month.

The BMA consultants committee has confirmed that a 48-hour walkout will take place between 25 and 27 November, unless  health secretary Yvette Cooper takes meaningful steps to avoid action before then.

Consultants will provide Christmas Day level care over that period.

This would be the first time consultants in England have taken industrial action since 2023.

The announcement comes days after it was revealed that the Government was recommending a sub-inflationary pay rise of just 2.4 per cent for all doctors in 2027/28 to the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration.

In its discussions with the Government, the BMA is demanding commitments to meaningful and fully funded measures aimed at resolving doctors’ concerns over working conditions and pay restoration. However, consultants committee co-chairs Helen Neary and Shanu Datta said that ministers had failed to demonstrate that such concerns were being taken seriously.

They said: ‘Since we entered into dispute over 18 months ago we have engaged in good faith with the Government, proposing practical solutions, but time-and-time again ministers have kicked the can down the road. Unfortunately, that road has now run out, and we have been forced to announce strikes.

‘Consultants take their responsibilities incredibly seriously, and striking does not come naturally, but we are hearing loud and clear from the profession that they have had enough.

‘As the most senior and skilled doctors in the NHS, consultants not only provide frontline, life-saving care, but they are central to running and designing services, training and supervising the future workforce and ensuring patients get the best treatment possible. Solving the pressures facing the health service will be impossible without valuing and retaining these doctors. Yet the Government is failing to recognise this, ignoring our concerns around consultants’ wellbeing and workload, and pushing them further away from the NHS.’