JUNIOR doctors have been given a 48-hour ultimatum to call off strikes or lose an improved pay deal.
Sir Keir Starmer slammed the British Medical Association for “recklessly” deciding to trigger industrial action.
The militant union announced walkouts without consulting its members in protest at a 7.1 per cent pay rise.
Despite netting some docs more than £100,000, the BMA snubbed the offer in pursuit of its 26 per cent aim.
The PM wrote in The Times: “Walking away from this deal is the wrong decision. It is a reckless decision.
“And doing so without even giving resident doctors themselves the chance to vote on it makes it even worse.
“No one benefits from rejecting this deal. Resident doctors will be worse off.
“Instead of the improved pay, progression and support on offer, they will receive the standard pay award this year, with none of the additional reforms that would have strengthened their working lives.”
Doctors plan to gather on picket lines from 7am on April 7 and will not return to work until April 13, the union said.
Last week, the union urged the Government to “act fast” to prevent the strikes from happening.
BMA Resident Doctors Committee chairman Jack Fletcher said: “We have been negotiating in good faith for weeks to try and end the simultaneous pay and jobs crises for resident doctors.
“Frustratingly we had been making good progress right up until the point, in the last two weeks, when the Government began to shift the goalposts.
“As talks progressed it became clear that the money proposed for pay increases was now going to be spread over three years.
“This is combined with today’s pay review body (DDRB) recommendation of a 3.5 per cent uplift pointing to yet more years in which our pay, at best, barely treads water.
“We have made abundantly clear throughout this dispute that our aim is pay restoration, and any deal that did not move us substantially in that direction was not going to fly.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, has previously said strikes were “self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous”.
