Junior doctors are set to strike in the coming days with thousands of appointments and procedures potentially being postponed.

Across England, junior doctors will strike from Friday, August 11 at 7am until Tuesday, August 15 at 7am, the British Medical Association (BMA) has announced.

The NHS website explains the impact of recent strikes: “This is the fifth strike from junior doctors, meaning services have seen over 450 hours without a third of the medical workforce over the last five months – the equivalent of 19 full days.”

Junior doctors set to strike again from Friday

The website adds: “Following a recent ruling by the High Court, employers can no longer use agency staff to fill in for striking workers during industrial action, which means some of the cover arrangements used during previous strikes will not be possible.

“However, the ruling does not apply to a hospital’s own ‘bank’ staff, and NHS Employers has provided guidance to trusts on this issue.”

So far, 778,000 NHS hospital appointments have been disrupted while more than 458,000 staff shifts have been interrupted by strikes.

When junior doctors previously took action, up to 20,000 staff were off per day due to the strikes.

The most recent strike by junior doctors which took place in July meant that 102,000 hospital appointments were disrupted over five days.

Emergency care will continue to be prioritised by the NHS during periods of industrial action and members of the public are urged to call 999 if there is a life-threatening emergency.

For other health concerns, they should use NHS 111 online.

NHS national medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, said: “This latest round of junior doctors strikes will again significantly disrupt services for patients and the additional challenge this time is that organisations are unable to use agency workers to cover staff out on strike.

“It is also a period of time where NHS staff often take annual leave, so there are already gaps in the workforce.

“We will continue to prioritise emergency care, but it inevitably means that many thousands of appointments will need to be postponed.

Please continue to use 999 if it is a life-threatening emergency and 111 online for anything non-urgent. GPs and pharmacies are also open and largely unaffected by strikes. If you have an appointment and haven’t been told it’s been postponed, it’s also vital you turn up as normal.

“While NHS staff are doing all they can to manage, there is no doubt that the cumulative impact of strikes increases with each action, as the NHS continues to tackle the biggest backlog in its history.”