We are months into NHS strikes and doctors warn they could last into 2024 - what does it mean for patients in pain?

Doctors are again heading out on strike this week, expected to cause more disruption and delays in the NHS.

Junior doctors will walk out for 72 hours from Wednesday, June 14, after the latest round of pay talks broke down back in May. The strike will take place in England from 7am on Wednesday, June 14 until 7am on Saturday, June 17.

The British Medical Association, which represents doctors and medical students in the UK, described the government's five per cent wage rise offer as an 'insult'. The unions are looking for a 35 per cent hike in wages – but after months of conversations with the government, there has been little progress.

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The junior doctors claim the 35 per cent demand is actually ‘pay restoration’ after a decade of their salaries not keeping pace with inflation. "The government's 5 per cent pay increase offer is an insult to junior doctors in England,” the BMA said after the last series of talks collapsed. “There's nothing junior about junior doctors, yet our pay has been cut by 26.1 per cent since 2008.”

However, the government has always hit back, being called “unreasonable” by Health Secretary Steve Barclay, who said there must be “movement on both sides” of the dispute.

Now, junior doctors have again decided there ‘is no option but to strike’.

The term junior doctor includes all levels of doctors from the time they start work to becoming a consultant, a process that takes years. There are more than 80,000 junior doctors in the NHS, which make up almost half of the health service's medical workforce. Among that figure are 60,000 doctors eligible to strike.

Dr Rob Laurenson, co-chairman of the BMA junior doctors’