Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, said: “My message is that we should start negotiating and the Government should stop game-playing, and what we should be doing is getting round the table immediately to try and get a solution which will see us stop turning tens of thousands of resident doctors who are fully qualified away from jobs in the NHS and also value doctors to stop them from leaving the NHS, rather than the Health Secretary pushing real term pay cuts onto doctors in just a few months’ time.”