A cabinet minister on Friday told junior doctors they are "not exceptional" and urged them to take Government offered pay rises.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said everyone has seen the "pressures" of inflation and NHS staff were no different.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday announced he would be accepting recommendations from public sector pay review bodies to increase wages by at least 6 per cent across the board.
Teachers called off strike action after a 6.5 per cent uplift. Junior doctors were offered 6 per cent, plus a one-off payment of £1,250.
But the British Medical Association, whose members are currently on strike and calling for a full 35 per cent pay increase which they say will bring salaries back to 2008 levels, rejected the proposal.
BMA chairman of council Professor Phil Banfield said: "This uplift still fails tens of thousands of frontline staff and is unlikely to do much to help retain a beleaguered, burnt out, undervalued workforce."
Ms Keegan said junior doctors were "not unusual" in the pressures they were facing as "every single person actually across the world, not even just across this country, has seen the impacts of inflation".
She accused the union of being "unreasonable".
"[Junior doctors] are not exceptional in having inflation pressures," Ms Keegan he told Sky News. "We all have inflationary pressures. Everybody does."
NHS leaders have privately warned ministers that ongoing strike action would jeopardise Mr Sunak’s pledge to cut NHS waiting lists by next year.
Figures released on Thursday showed an estimated 7.47 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of May, up from 7.42 million in April.
Pat Cullen, the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, accused the Government of taking a "cavalier" approach to pay "when it knows over 100,000 nursing staff across the country voted to continue strike action only days ago".
Ms Keegan was also questioned about why rail unions, who are staging walk outs later this month over pay, pensions and conditions, should accept a lower 4 per cent pay offer than public sector workers.
The RMT union has announced rail strikes on July 20, 22, and 29, while a week of Tube strikes will begin on Sunday, July 23.
Aslef members at 16 rail operators are refusing to work overtime throughout July.
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said the union is "determined" to get a fair deal for its workers.
Ms Keegan told LBC: “You’ve got to look in great detail at the whole package and the perks and benefits as well. I haven’t looked in detail [at rail workers], I’ve been pretty focused on the teachers.
“But what I do know is they will go into looking at all of the challenges and recruitment and retention and what’s affordable as well. And you’ve got to get that fair balance.
“It is difficult, it’s more difficult to get it when you’ve got these inflationary pressures. We understand that because everybody looks at inflation and says ‘I need an increase by inflation’. And of course, that would be the worst thing to do because we need to halve inflation not chase inflation."
