United Kingdom govt will impose contracts on doctors to end strikes

Abhishek Joshi, a heart doctor at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, said the new contracts could stop hospital operators from being penalised if doctors work prolonged shifts, “at the end of which we’ll be exhausted and therefore dangerous”.

The latest junior doctors strike took place on Wednesday and disrupted services across all the region’s hospital trusts.

An eleventh-hour offer by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, which made some concession on the key sticking point of unsocial pay, was rejected by the British Medical Association as doctors joined picket lines across England in a second round of industrial action.

The move has sparked fears that doctors will leave the profession, leading to staffing shortages at NHS hospitals which are already struggling to cope with rising demand from patients.

BMA junior doctor leader Johann Malawana said the government should not force a contract on doctors and should “put [the] NHS before politics, patients before machismo”.

The 30-year-old, who left his post as a junior doctor last week to volunteer in Africa, said it is risky for the government to expect his colleagues to work through tiredness.

The new contract proposes an 11 per cent rise in basic pay for junior doctors.

She said: “Our junior doctors do an unbelievable job but are being placed under more and more strain as a result of the Government’s underinvestment in the NHS”.

Their disagreement relies on whether Saturday should be treated and paid as a normal working day.

Mr Hunt said he was advised imposing the contract would end the current “uncertainty of services” following the cancellation of appointments and operations in the UK.

The Health Secretary had been warned he could face mass-resignations if a new contract was imposed.

There are more than 50,000 junior doctors in England – the term covers those who are fresh out of medical school through to others who have a decade of experience behind them.

It was the second day of industrial action over the contracts, with an earlier strike held on January 12.

He went on: “I am accepting that the basis of the game has changed, in that the Government has taken this – what no doubt they see as decisive but which many in the NHS and the public sector will see as threatening and dictatorial – (step)”.

“I do believe, however, that the process of negotiation has uncovered some wider and more deep-seated issues relating to junior doctors’ morale, wellbeing and quality of life which need to be addressed”.

The BMA responded to the announcement, calling it a “total failure” of the government to listen to doctors and the NHS.