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Health Secretary Wes Streeting is engaged in a showdown with medical unions over pay rises.

Resident doctors – formally known as junior doctors – are still after an almost 30% pay rise as “restoration” to their 2008 salary equivalent.

This dispute rumbled on for years with the Conservatives, and there may have been hope in Labour that their closer union ties could break down the barriers.

But the British Medical Association say the average of 5.2% rise offered by the government is insufficient.

Writing in The Times overnight, Streeting said: “We can’t afford to return to a continuous cycle of stand-offs, strikes, and cancellations.”

He added: “Strikes should always be a last resort, and I don’t think they are in anyone’s interest today.

“I’m appealing to resident doctors to vote ‘No’ in the ballot, and instead continue the progress we’ve made, working together to rebuild our NHS.”

New polling shows the public no longer back the medics in their dispute – marking a departure from the view under the Tories.

BMA resident doctors committee co-chairs Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said in a statement: “Wes Streeting must now step forward with a solution that allows us to stay with our patients, off the picket lines, and remain in this country rather than being driven to seek work abroad where doctors’ unique skills and expertise are more appropriately valued.”

It’s worth noting that, across the economy, pay in the UK has failed to keep up with inflation and others costs in what is known as wage stagnation.