With flu hospitalisations at record levels, Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS England's national medical director, said the latest round of action was likely to impact more on patients than the previous two walk-outs.

She said: ‘Staff will come together as they always do, going above and beyond to provide safe care for patients and limit disruption, but sadly more patients are likely to feel the impact of this round of strikes than in the previous two – and staff who are covering will not get the Christmas break they deserve with their families.'

The latest action will be the 14th round of strikes from resident doctors since March 2023, resulting in 59 days of disruption to NHS services.

Resident doctors, previously named junior doctors, make up around half of all doctors in the NHS and have anywhere up to 8 years' experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to 3 years in general practice.

NHS leaders, meanwhile, continued to urge people to come forward for their flu jabs ahead of the new year.

NHS staff delivered 28,000 more flu vaccines year-on-year in the first week of December and have administered over 17.4m in the year-to-date, up 170,000 year-on-year.

The latest BMA action runs from 7am today to 7am on Monday 22 December.

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting told the Health and Social Care Committee this morning: 'This is going to be a challenging five days and a really challenging few weeks. We are doing everything to keep the show on the road.' 

Streeting said the strikes would cost the NHS around a quarter of a billion of pounds and would 'impact on operational procedures, patients and on the whole NHS workforce'. 

'I deeply regret we are in the situation,' he added.