NHS strike dates: When the next nurse walkouts are and which areas are affected
The second round of nurses' strikes will affect 55 trusts across England, up from 44 before Christmas
Nurses are set to go on strike again across England in January in an ongoing dispute over pay.
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union held two strikes in December, which resulted in 30,000 operations and appointments being cancelled.
The RCN is demanding a 19 per cent pay rise, which has been dismissed as "unaffordable" by the Government.
Commenting on the upcoming walkouts, Pat Cullen, the RCN's general secretary, said: "The Government had the opportunity to end this dispute before Christmas, but instead they have chosen to push nursing staff out into the cold again in January.
"I do not wish to prolong this dispute, but the Prime Minister has left us with no choice.
"The public support has been heart-warming and I am more convinced than ever that this is the right thing to do for patients and the future of the NHS."
She added that the "voice of nursing will not be ignored" and that the "sooner ministers come to the negotiating table, the sooner this can be resolved".
When are the next nurses strikes?
- Wednesday, January 18
- Thursday, January 19
As the next walkouts are being held on consecutive days, they could cause greater disruption than the first two days of strikes on December 15 and 20.
Despite claims that up to 100,000 nurses would strike in December, figures for England show that less than 12,000 nurses did.
However, some nurses who wanted to strike may not have been rostered to work, while others will have been obliged to work in services exempt from the action.
Which hospitals will be affected?
The next wave of strikes will involve more trusts - around one in three will be involved, up from one in four in December.
In total, 55 trusts in England will be affected by strike action, up from 44 when strikes took place before Christmas.
There will be no strikes in Wales and Northern Ireland this time.
Unions have said that the agreements made to protect specific services in the December strikes will not be automatically be rolled over.
Emergency care is protected from strike action, and in December an agreement was made to exempt a number of services from industrial action.
However, cancer patients were still among those who saw operations and appointments cancelled.
While the RCN is demanding a 19 per cent pay rise, Ms Cullen has implied the union could be willing to accept a pay rise of 10 per cent after she called on the Government to meet it "halfway".
Junior doctor strike: vote opens on Jan 9
Around 45,000 junior doctors will start being balloted on Monday on whether to embark on strikes. Medics will be asked to back the strikes, which would start with a three-day walkout in March.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said such action would start with "full walkouts" - including the removal of emergency cover - for 72 hours.
BMA leaders have already said that junior doctors are "very likely" to vote in favour of strikes, as part of a campaign to see pay rise by more than one quarter.
The industrial action by doctors would be the first since 2016, when four periods of industrial action led to almost 300,000 appointments and operations being cancelled.
A 72-hour walkout would be significantly longer than such strikes, which lasted up to 48 hours hours each.
The removal of emergency cover means NHS trusts will be forced to deploy senior medics to do tasks normally performed by juniors.
Ambulance strikes
Thousands of ambulance workers across the country also walked out in a dispute over pay in January after unions announced strike action with paramedics and 999 call handlers.
The strikes took place on January 11 (GMB and Unison) and another is planned for January 23 (Unison).
Unison has said its action - which will involve five NHS ambulance trusts - will involve all ambulance employees, including call handlers, not just the 999 response crews as was the case during the first ambulance strikes in December.
Welsh ambulance workers in Unite are also set to stage two strikes on January 19 and 23.