NHS consultants will pause their crippling strikes after ministers agreed to break the deadlock and negotiate.
Senior doctors in the British Medical Association are set to pause walkouts in their drive for a pay rise and reform of their annual salary review.
AlamyConsultants and junior doctors have been on strike together twice[/caption]
The Department of Health has agreed to meet with the BMA after the consultants gave them a four-week window in October to avoid more strikes.
The move will calm fears of an NHS meltdown this winter, with junior doctors’ strikes still raging.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We have agreed to meet the BMA Consultants Committee following their commitment to pause strike action, in the hope we will find a resolution and end the dispute.
“We have been clear that headline pay will not be on the table.
“Doctors have already received a fair and reasonable pay rise.”
Consultants, who are generally the top doctors in the hospital and earn an estimated £134,000 per year on average, have been on strike four times this year.
Two of them coincided with junior doctors’ walkouts, bringing clinics grinding to a halt.
Overall, NHS strikes have this year led to more than a million appointment cancellations and around a month of lost labour.