Junior doctors in England are to stage a four-day walkout from Friday August 11 to Tuesday August 15, the British Medical Association has announced.
The union said the walkout was the “next round of monthly strike action” as it called for the Government to return to the negotiating table.
Previous industrial action this year has led to the cancellation of tens of thousands of NHS appointments.
Junior doctors have lost “more than a quarter” of their pay in 15 years and are “here to get it back”, the BMA said.
The four-day strike will begin at 7am on Friday August 11 and end at 7am on Tuesday August 15.
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors’ committee, said in a statement: “It should never have got to the point where we needed to announce a fifth round of strike action.
“The Prime Minister has told us that talks are over but it is not for Rishi Sunak to decide that negotiations are over before he has even stepped in the room.
“This dispute will end only at the negotiating table. If the Prime Minister was hoping to demoralise and divide our profession with his actions, he will be disappointed.
“Consultants, along with our specialist and associate specialist colleagues, have covered crucial services during our strikes and those same consultants were also on their own picket lines last week.
“Mutual solidarity has been on display at hospital picket lines up and down the country: this is a profession united in its refusal to accept yet another pay cut.”
Junior doctors want a pay increase of 35 per cent to make up for inflation in the past 15 years, which they said has cut their earnings by 26 per cent.
But Health Secretary Steve Barclay has branded the pay demand unaffordable, and the parties remain deadlocked.
A five-day strike was staged by junior doctors on July 13 and was thought to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service.
Thousands of appointments and pre-planned operations were disrupted as emergency and critical care was prioritised.
Industrial action staged by the BMA in June led to the cancellation of nearly 33,000 hospital appointments and procedures in London. An average of 4,566 doctors walked out in London, which is at least 600 more than the North-East, the second worst-affected region.
Junior doctors also walked out in March and April.
Earlier this month a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said junior doctors’ pay has increased by a cumulative 8.2 per cent since 2019/20.
They added: “We also introduced a higher pay band for the most experienced staff and increased rates for night shifts.
“The Health and Social Care Secretary has met with the BMA and other medical unions to discuss pay, conditions and workload. He’s been clear he wants to continue discussing how we can make the NHS a better place to work for all.”
