HEALTH Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the British Medical Association’s (BMA) decision to call off the five-day strike by junior doctors, due to start on Monday.

NHS England told the BMA it could not cope with the 12-day notice period it was given of this month’s industrial action.

Mr Hunt said: “The public will be relieved the BMA has decided to call off the first phase of these unprecedented strikes, so this is welcome news. But we must not let it obscure the fact that the remaining planned industrial action is unprecedented in length and severity and will be damaging for patients, some of whom will already have had operations cancelled.”

In a statement in Parliament on Monday, the Tory MP for South West Surrey also made it clear the BMA’s decision, while welcome, would not persuade him to lift his threat to impose a new contract from next month.