JUNIOR doctors will assemble in Newcastle on Saturday (April 9) in a ‘March to Save the NHS’ event.

The march will follow a 48 hour walk-out this week at hospitals up and down the country, part of a long running dispute over the introduction of a new junior doctors' contract.

It will start at 1pm outside Newcastle University’s medical school and will be followed by a rally next to Grey’s Monument at 2pm.

Speakers will include Grahame Morris, Labour MP for Easington, and Johann Malawana, chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee.

Nick Dowson, one of the march’s organisers and the National Health Action Party’s Northern Coordinator, said: “Across the NHS organisations are struggling to recruit the people they need and staffing levels will only worsen if the Government continues to push through unpopular contracts and decrease pay.”

The march has been organised by a coalition including People’s Assemblies, Momentum, Keep Our NHS Public, the BMA, 999CallForTheNHS, the National Health Action Party, Unison and Unite, the North-East Public Services Alliance, and North-East Socialist Singers.