JUNIOR doctors in England are to escalate their industrial action for better pay by striking for five days next month in the largest NHS action in history, their union said yesterday.

The British Medical Association (BMA) also reported junior doctors being “inundated” with job offers from abroad as the government ignores their call for their pay to be restored to 2008 levels.

In one instance, the government of South Australia sent a truck with advertisement hoardings to picket lines offering the doctors well-paid jobs there, it said.

The attempts to lure angry and dissatisfied NHS workers away comes against a background of 154,000 staff shortages including 47,000 nurses, more than 8,500 doctors, and shortages of midwives, general practitioners and community nurses.

July’s action will be “the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service,” according to the BMA.

BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said: “The NHS is one of this country’s proudest achievements and it is shameful that we have a government seemingly content to let it decline to the point of collapse with decades of real-terms pay cuts to doctors driving them away.

“With the 75th birthday of the NHS just days away, neglect of its workforce has left us with 7.4 million people on waiting lists for surgery and procedures, 8,500 unfilled doctors’ posts in hospitals, and doctors who can barely walk down the road without a foreign government tempting them to leave an NHS where they are paid £14 per hour for a country which will pay them properly.”

They also said more than 80 per cent of junior doctors reported that patients support their action.

“Even now the government can avert our action by coming to the table with a credible offer on pay restoration,” the pair said.

“Restoring pay can stem the flow of Australian job adverts in doctors’ social media feeds — and lead to a future 75 years of doctors being paid fairly, in a rebuilt workforce and NHS that this country can continue to be proud of.”

A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the junior doctors “chose to end talks by announcing new strike dates” and that if the strikes were cancelled “we will be able to proceed with those discussions.”

The doctors will strike from July 13 to 18.