‘Daunted’: new junior doctors in England voice worries as strike begins

Last month the BMA rejected a 6% pay rise. The union’s council chair said the offer failed to address ‘a decade’s worth of sub-inflation pay awards’. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

As junior doctors in England take to the picket line on Friday morning, thousands of them will have been in their roles since only last week after finishing medical school. Now in their first year of foundation training, they will be ending their working week by hanging up their stethoscopes and picking up a placard.

The strike is the fifth round of industrial action organised by the British Medical Association (BMA) and is scheduled to run for four full days from 7am amid the bitter dispute with the government over pay.