01 September 2016

The Health Secretary and Prime Minister have both lashed out at the legions of junior doctors who plan to go out on strike this September in protest over a contract they believe will harm patient safety.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt blamed the doctors for any pain suffered by those whose non-urgent hip replacement surgeries may need to be postponed during the strike, while Theresa May accused medical staff of “playing politics”.

The five-day strike has been called after 58% of junior doctors and medical students rejected a deal negotiated in April, following which all attempts to resolve the dispute have been met with “deafening silence”, according to BMA junior doctor committee chair Ellen McCourt.

Jeremy Hunt has said he will not engage in further negotiations and will push ahead to impose the new contracts on doctors, despite clinicians saying they will be harmful to patient health, and the fact the junior doctors have so far been widely supported by the public.

“We have a simple ask of the Government: stop the imposition,” Ellen McCourt said.

“If it agrees to do this, junior doctors will call off industrial action.”

“This is not a situation junior doctors wanted to find themselves in. We want to resolve this dispute through talks, but in forcing through a contract that junior doctors have rejected and which they don’t believe is good for their patients or themselves, the Government has left them with no other choice.

“Junior doctors still have serious concerns with the contract, particularly that it will fuel the workforce crisis, and that it fails to treat all doctors fairly.”