JUNIOR doctors in south Devon are due to join the latest strike action which begins today. 

A picket was expected outside Torbay Hospital as part of the ongoing dispute which is to run for four days. 

Operations and appointments could be postponed this week as the doctors continue their calls for a 35 per cent pay increase to make up for years of below-inflation rises. 

The strike action starts from 7am is to finish at 7am on Saturday. 

And in details release this morning, the British Medical Association claims three junior doctors would earn just £66.55 between them for taking out an appendix.

The BMA’s latest advertising campaign in support of the pay dispute by junior doctors in England, show how little they are paid for their roles in surgical procedures and emphasise they are often anything but junior in skill and expertise.

The doctors are calling for ‘full pay restoration to reverse the steep decline in pay faced by junior doctors since 2008/9’.

The British Medical Association says junior doctors have experienced a cut of more than 25 per cent to their salaries over the last 15 years. 

It says the ‘lack of investment in wages by the Government has made it harder to recruit and retain junior doctors’, putting further pressure on the NHS and makes it harder to deliver care to the standards expected by professionals. 

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said on Sunday that the demand was ‘unrealistic’, but the BMA said Mr Barclay is yet to put a serious offer on the table.

No services are exempt from this week’s strike but the BMA says there are plans to protect patients, which could involve pulling junior doctors off the picket line if individual hospitals report lives are in immediate danger.

The NHS Confederation says patients are likely to see more of an impact than previous action because this is a four-day walkout and comes after the Easter weekend.

People are being urged to ‘avoid risky behaviour' as emergency and urgent care will be prioritised over routine appointments and treatment. 

Medical director of NHS England Professor Sir Stephen Powis said appointments and operations will only be cancelled ‘where unavoidable.

He added: ‘The NHS has been preparing extensively for the next set of strikes but managing additional pressure doesn’t get easier as time goes by, it gets much more difficult, not only due to the sheer number of appointments that need to be rescheduled, but also that they can take time to rearrange with multiple teams involved.

‘This is set to be the most disruptive industrial action in NHS history, and the strikes will bring immense pressures, coming on the back of a challenged extended bank holiday weekend for staff and services.

‘Emergency, urgent and critical care will be prioritised but some patients will unfortunately have had their appointments postponed.’

In the new BMA adverts, three doctors with 10, seven and one-years experience are pictured in an operating theatre where an appendix is being removed.

For the procedure, which lasts about an hour, they would earn £28, £24.46, and £14.09 respectively – a total of just £66.55.

The BMA is asking: ‘Is this a fair price to provide patients with high quality healthcare?’ 

The junior doctors in England are taking industrial action over a 26per cent erosion in their real-terms pay over the past 15 years.

Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, BMA junior doctors committee co-chairs, said: ‘It is appalling that this Government feels that paying three junior doctors as little as £66.55 between them for work of this value, is justified. 

‘This is highly skilled work requiring years of study and intensive training in a high-pressure environment where the job can be a matter of life and death.

‘Full pay restoration is not a high price to pay for healthcare that junior doctors deliver. 

‘As we have made clear in our latest offer to begin talks, we are always ready to talk and Mr Barclay can stop the strikes at any time if he proposes a credible offer.’