A DOCTORS' union says the majority of its members in Wales would support industrial action, including strikes, over their current pay and conditions.

The Welsh arm of the British Medical Association (BMA Cymru) said the indicative survey - not an official strike ballot - revealed nearly two thirds of its "demoralised" members were in favour of taking action.

If the union decides to pursue industrial action, it could mean doctors in Wales go on strike for the very first time.

The survey piles pressure on ministers and comes amid a period widespread turmoil for health workers in Wales and around the UK, after nursing and ambulance services' unions rejected government pay offers and sent their members out onto picket lines.

BMA Cymru said the survey of hospital doctors in Wales, carried out this month, revealed 63 per cent of respondents would be willing to take industrial action, up to and including strikes.

The union said it held the survey to gauge doctors' views "on the latest below-inflation pay award from [the] Welsh Government".

Ministers in Wales have offered the nation's doctors a 4.5 per cent pay rise, the union said, adding that the vast majority of its members (78 per cent) who responded to the survey "felt that a pay rise that matched or exceeded inflation was needed to reflect their current contribution".

Iona Collins, who chairs the BMA's Welsh Council, said she had requested an urgent meeting with Welsh Government health minister Eluned Morgan to "discuss the need for immediate action".

“This survey result is upsetting to all, including the doctors who took part," Dr Collins said. "Doctors are healthcare professionals who invest most of their lives to care for others. They care passionately about their jobs and take their vocations seriously. It's gut-wrenching for doctors to consider walking away from work, when doctors know that they are so desperately needed in the workplace."

She warned doctors had been "quietly quitting" the NHS "for years, by reducing their contracted hours or leaving altogether".

Dr Collins said the financial incentive to work for the NHS had been "eroded over the last decade".

“No other healthcare system devalues their doctors like this, so there is little wonder that so many doctors leave the NHS to work elsewhere," she added, citing "record" patient waiting lists and warning that "without action now, patients will continue to suffer as a direct consequence of an under-funded NHS with insufficient direct clinical care".

“On that basis we hope the Welsh Government will now finally wake up to the crisis in the medical workforce and take serious action, starting with better pay awards as part of an urgently required plan to address years of pay erosion," she said.