Doctors could have their student debts wiped as part of a deal to "completely" avoid a five-day strike next week.
British Medical Association (BMA) leaders met with Health Secretary West Streeting in Whitehall on Thursday for negotiations, lasting two hours - both have described the discussions as constructive.
With up to 50,000 junior doctors possibly due to stage a five-day walkout at 7am next Friday, the BMA said there was a "very small window of opportunity" to call it off.
Streeting has insisted he "cannot move" on a 29 per cent pay rise for resident doctors - previously known as junior doctors.
However, other issues have been part of negotiations.
It includes writing off students loans if medical graduates keep working in the NGS for a certain amount of years.
Younger doctors can graduate from medical school after five years with a £100,000 debt - it can be reduced over time under a "loan forgiveness" scheme.
Other potential reforms include cutting doctors' pensions to give them "higher pay today" as well as subsidising fees for exams and speeding up career progression so they are eligible to earn more earlier.
PA
|Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Chancellor Rachel Reeves meet staff in the outpatients department during a visit to St Thomas' Hospital in London
BMA resident doctors committee co-chair Dr Ross Nieuwoudt said "nothing is completely off the table", following Thursday's meeting.
"We have a very small window of opportunity over the next few days to avert strike action," he said.
Nieuwoudt added that there had been "genuine engagement and exploration at a high level" on issues relating to doctors' pay and conditions.
He said it filled "us with hope that in the next few days we can find a way to avoid strikes completely".
PA | Junior Doctor's at a strike last year
Nieuwoudt's co-chair Dr Melissa Ryan said the increasing pay remained the "simplest solution" to avoiding the strikes.
However, "other options, other ways" were part of discussions with Streeting.
The Health Secretary said after the "constructive conversation", there will be further discussions "in the coming days" in a bid to avert the action.
"While we cannot move on pay after a 28.9 per cent pay rise," he said.
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|BMA resident doctors committee co-chair's Dr Ross Nieuwoudt and Dr Melissa Ryan
"We are working on areas where can improve working lives for resident doctors."
He added that strikes had a "serious cost for patients" and he was appealing to the BMA to "call them off and instead work together to improve their members' working conditions and continue rebuilding the NHS".
Streeting had previously described the doctors' strikes as a "gift" to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Addressing Labour MPs earlier this week, Streeting said: "The BMA's threats are unnecessary, unreasonable, and unfair.
"More than that, these strikes would be a gift to Nigel Farage, just as we are beginning to cut waiting lists and get the NHS moving in the right direction.
"What better recruitment agent could there be for his right-wing populist attacks on the very existence of a publicly funded, free at the point of need, universal health service? He is praying that we fail on the NHS.
"If Labour fail, he will point to that as proof that the NHS has failed and must now be replaced by an insurance-style system.
"So we are in the fight for the survival of the NHS, and it is a fight I have no intention of losing."