Operations cancelled as junior doctors hold second strike

Health ministers and doctors’ leaders failed to agree about allowances for being on call before the contract was imposed.

Mr Hunt told MPs that if just one doctor works one hour over the maximum shift rate, it can trigger a 66 per cent pay rise for all doctors on that rota.

The Health Secretary said a new deal will be imposed after negotiations with the British Medical Association stalled.

And nearly 90 percent of junior doctors said they would consider resigning from the NHS if the government does so, according to a poll of more than 1,000 medics seen exclusively by The Independent, highlighting the strength of opposition to the proposals.

“The government’s entrenched position in refusing to recognise Saturday working as unsocial hours, together with its continued threat to impose a contract so fiercely resisted by junior doctors across England, leaves us with no alternative but to continue with industrial action'”.

But now at least nine say they never supported the idea of forcing junior doctors to accept new contracts and did not back the Health Secretary’s move.

“Does he not realise that this decision could lead to a protracted period of industrial action that will be distressing for everyone?” she asked.

Mr Hunt said: “Our door remained open for three years and we demonstrated time and again our willingness to negotiate with the BMA on the concerns that they raised”.

“This is clearly a political fight for the government rather than an attempt to come to a reasonable solution for all junior doctors”, Johann Malawana, MD, BMA junior physician committee chair, said in the statement.

JUNIOR doctors at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch joined the picket line today following a bitter dispute over new contracts.

The strike action follows a 24 hour strike that took place in January.

“We are doing this to save the NHS”.

Ms Macklin-Doherty said: “We have been vilified and misrepresented by the Secretary of State for Health in the media to the general public I think this has got worse since the last strike”.

What exactly do junior doctors do?

“Junior doctors already work around the clock, seven days a week and they do so under their existing contract”.

The major sticking point is whether Saturday should in future be considered a normal working day for doctors.