Doctors protest ‘unsafe and unfair’ contracts outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital

But the action was criticised by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who described the strike as “wholly unnecessary” and “very disappointing”.

Only emergency cases will be treated during the strike despite last-ditch efforts from Prime Minister David Cameron pleading with medics to shelve their “damaging” plans.

The doctors – medical-school graduates training to be consultants or family practitioners – are providing emergency care for only the 24 hours that started at 8am London time.

Dr Mitchell conceded that junior doctors were “clearly highly disillusioned” but pleaded with them to negotiate a settlement.

Now officials from Acas are set to contact both sides later to get them back round the table. But this is offset by plans to cut the number of hours on a weekend for which juniors can claim extra pay for unsocial hours.

A picket line protest took place outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital today as junior doctors took strike action over proposed new contracts.

“This could begin as early as the summer for new doctors joining the NHS and would then be rolled out among the existing 50,000 junior doctors”, our correspondent said.

Junior doctors don’t want to become embroiled in a political dispute but the Government’s refusal to listen to their concerns has led to this point.

The walkout comes after talks between the union and the government failed to reach agreement on the new contract.

Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) at Solihull’s hospitals are joining those across the country to walk out in opposition of a contract which is being pushed through by the Department of Health. The government says it’s any shift which includes three hours between 11pm and 6am while the BMA says it’s any shift that includes hours after 10pm.

In a message Monday he said: “This strike is not necessary, it will be damaging”.

A total of 37,000 of 45,000 junior doctors in England took part in a vote in November previous year and 98 percent of them voted for industrial action.

If no progress has been made with negotiations after today’s strike, the BMA is planning on carrying out further action with a 48-hour, emergency-care-only strike on January 26, followed by a full withdrawal of labour planned for February 10.

The NHS is widely considered to be one of the UK’s most treasured institutions and a majority of the public are backing the strike, according to a recent poll by Ipsos Mori.