The former chief medical officer for Scotland, Dr Mac Armstrong, has resigned from the British Medical Association over plans for strike action which he said will put lives at risk.

Dr Amstrong, a BMA member for more than 40 years, said the decision by junior doctors in England to hold an all-out strike had prompted his decision.

In a letter to the chairman of the BMA council, Armstrong said that he could "no longer continue to be associated with an organisation which . . . is willing to put patients' lives at risk, as it is doing by supporting by supporting an all-out strike by junior doctors later this month."

Later this month the union is due to hold the first ever strikes to involve full withdrawal of labour by junior doctors.