Heidi Alexander MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, speaking later today at the junior doctors’ rally, is expected to say:

“I spent Wednesday morning with a junior doctor, and let me say this - junior doctors are the backbone of the NHS. They already work nights, they already work weekends, and they even work Christmas Day.

“It’s wrong that this Government is OK with the idea of paying some junior doctors less to do the work they do now. They’re wrong to want to remove the safeguards which prevent junior doctors from having to work excessive and exhausting hours. And they’re wrong to punish staff for their own financial mismanagement of the NHS.

“Nobody wants to see industrial action but nobody wants junior doctors too exhausted to provide safe patient care either.

“I have a simple message for Jeremy Hunt today. Stop the high-handed demands, show you are prepared to compromise and put patient safety ahead of politics. The ball is in his court. He needs to listen to junior doctors and he needs to recognise public concern. 

“If he continues to ignore those concerns, the outcome will be bad for doctors, bad for patients and bad for the NHS.”