Medical leaders caution that the continued junior doctors’ strike risks lasting harm to public trust, labelling the action “unjustifiable” and citing polls showing nearly half of the public opposed to walkouts.

A new initiative aims to reduce widespread medical leave by urging GPs to prescribe job coaching and fitness programmes, ensuring more people return to the workforce rather than relying on extended sick notes.

The government intends to return up to 50 people each week to France under a pilot policy that could see one in every 17 recent arrivals deported, forming part of efforts to manage Channel crossings and streamline asylum procedures.

Labour has ruled out offering higher pay to junior doctors to halt their planned industrial action, with the BMA backing up to six months of strikes following a 55% turnout in its ballot, prompting concern about delayed treatments and mounting pressures on healthcare services.