JUNIOR doctors have suspended the industrial action planned for next week.

Last week the British Medical Association announced training medics would perform a series of strikes by withdrawing labour, including emergency care, for a week each month until the end of the year.

The first wave of strikes was supposed to start next Monday.

But concerns have been raised over patient safety. Earlier the doctors' regulator, the General Medical Council, warned that patients would "suffer" given the scale of the action at such short notice.

The BMA has now said that, following discussion with NHS England, it will suspend next week's planned action.

But further strikes scheduled for October, November and December will still go ahead, the union said.