The NHS confederation are "deeply concerned" about the distress today's industrial action will cause patients.
Doctors are taking industrial action following a ballot by the British Medical Association.
Dean Royles, director of the NHS Employers organisation, a part of the NHS Confederation, said: "It is hugely disappointing that the NHS and its patients are facing this day of industrial action.
"We are deeply concerned about the anxiety it will cause to many of our staff who want to ensure their patients are not put at risk.
"We will find out whether the plans to protect urgent and emergency care that employers have been working on can hold up in the face of the first doctors' strike in nearly 40 years."
Mike Farrar, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, made a keynote speech yesterday at the confederation's national conference in Manchester, stating his feelings on today's action.
He said, speaking at the conference: "Whatever the right and wrongs of this dispute between doctors and the government, I feel passionately that patients should not be dragged into the argument."
Farrar added that good relations between all NHS constituent parts were crucial to its success and was important strong feelings about pensions did not impinge on the longer term.
