HOSPITAL administrators and junior doctors have both reassured patients that it will be “business as usual” at A&E departments tomorrow even if planned strike action goes ahead.

Failing a last-minute reprieve from talks chaired by mediation service Acas today, junior doctors at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and across the NHS in England will stage a 24-hour walkout on Tuesday.

The action will see junior doctors' numbers reduced to emergency levels - equivalent to staffing levels on Christmas Day.

Todd Leckie, a junior doctor at the Royal Sussex, said: “The important thing to say is that the A&E itself will have the same number of junior doctors as any other day.”

He advised people in need of urgent medical assistance to “come to hospital as they usually would,” explaining that the impact of the strike on patient care will be felt in the cancellation of non-emergency and long-planned outpatient treatments.

In a statement, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We are currently working on detailed, speciality-specific plans to ensure the standard of care we provide our patients during the proposed strike is unaffected.

“We don’t want people to change their plans. An accident or an emergency is still an accident or an emergency.”

Relations between the government, and junior doctors represented by the British Medical Association, have broken down over Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s refusal to abandon his threat to impose a controversial new contract without further negotiations.

The contract would increase basic pay but decrease the hours during which junior doctors are entitled to be paid at a premium, as part of the government’s move towards a 'seven-day NHS.'

But junior doctors - a term which encompasses some with ten years’ experience - are concerned that the new terms provide insufficient safeguards to prevent them working dangerously long hours.