Junior doctor strikes back on - 4th Jan 2016 6:11pm
Strikes by junior doctors in England are back on after talks with the government have broken down.
A 24-hour walk-out next Tuesday will be followed by a 48-hour strike on 26 January in the contract dispute.
A third day of action will take place in February, the British Medical Association said.
The action is likely to lead to thousands of non-emergency operations and hospital appointments being cancelled in the coming days.
But despite the failure to reach a deal, both sides have already indicated they want to keep negotiating ahead of next week's walk-out.
It comes after the union agreed to cancel three strikes last month to re-enter talks with the government.
The BMA had until midnight to decide whether it still wanted to take industrial action - or face having to re-ballot its members.
This is because of trade union rules which only allow industrial action in set timescales and require unions to give a week's notice of any walk-out.
The strike details announced are:
08:00 Tuesday 12 January to 08:00 Wednesday 13 January (emergency care will be staffed)
08:00 Tuesdays 26 January to 08:00 Thursday 28 January (emergency care will be staffed)
08:00 to 17:00 Wednesday 10 February (full walk-out)
The development came after both sides sat down on Monday for the first time since the Christmas break.
Weeks of negotiations had taken place right up until Christmas Eve following the intervention of conciliation service Acas.
Those talks marked the first time both sides had met formally since the break down of the original talks in autumn 2014.
Source
A 24-hour walk-out next Tuesday will be followed by a 48-hour strike on 26 January in the contract dispute.
A third day of action will take place in February, the British Medical Association said.
The action is likely to lead to thousands of non-emergency operations and hospital appointments being cancelled in the coming days.
But despite the failure to reach a deal, both sides have already indicated they want to keep negotiating ahead of next week's walk-out.
It comes after the union agreed to cancel three strikes last month to re-enter talks with the government.
The BMA had until midnight to decide whether it still wanted to take industrial action - or face having to re-ballot its members.
This is because of trade union rules which only allow industrial action in set timescales and require unions to give a week's notice of any walk-out.
The strike details announced are:
08:00 Tuesday 12 January to 08:00 Wednesday 13 January (emergency care will be staffed)
08:00 Tuesdays 26 January to 08:00 Thursday 28 January (emergency care will be staffed)
08:00 to 17:00 Wednesday 10 February (full walk-out)
The development came after both sides sat down on Monday for the first time since the Christmas break.
Weeks of negotiations had taken place right up until Christmas Eve following the intervention of conciliation service Acas.
Those talks marked the first time both sides had met formally since the break down of the original talks in autumn 2014.
Source