NHS consultants have announced that they will ballot for industrial action in three months if ministers fail to reopen negotiations on their new contract.

A strike could involve a total ban on working overtime and only treating patients in an emergency.

Mike Shaw, chairman of the Chesterfield local consultants' negotiating committee, said: "We are taking a form of action which does not fit with our upbringing but we have to bite the bullet.

"This government is a bully. This government only understands one kind of response."