Kemi Badenoch has pledged to ban doctors’ strikes if the Conservatives return to power.
The Tory leader said that her party would introduce primary legislation to block medics from taking widespread industrial action, placing the same restrictions on them that apply to police officers and soldiers.
Thousands of resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, began a five-day walkout on Friday after relations between the Government and British Medical Association (BMA) soured over a dispute about pay.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to “hold the country to ransom” after receiving a 28.9% pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector.
The BMA says, despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
On Saturday, the Conservatives said they would reintroduce minimum service level requirements, which were brought in by the previous government and scrapped by Labour, across the health service.
Mrs Badenoch said: “The BMA has become militant, these strikes are going too far, and it is time for action.
“Doctors do incredibly important work.
“Medicine is a vocation, not just a job.
“That is why in government we offered a fair deal that supported doctors, but protected taxpayers too.”
She said the Tories were “making an offer in the national interest, we will work with the Government to face down the BMA to help protect patients and the NHS.”
Patients have been urged to attend appointments unless told otherwise while the action is ongoing, with NHS England saying hospitals are aiming to reschedule any cancellations due to strikes within two weeks.
Mr Streeting has warned of a challenging few days for the health service but said “we are doing everything we can to minimise” harm.
