Junior doctors could be imposed with new contract after ‘final offer’ rejected

The Government will impose its new contract on junior doctors after talks failed to reach agreement, Jeremy Hunt said today.

Mr Hunt said the new contract would reduce the maximum number of hours a junior doctor could work to 72 a week, and would lead to an increase in their pay of 13.5% – not the 11% previously expected.

“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'”.

NHS junior doctors staged their second strike of the year yesterday after the British Medical Association rejected an offer from the Government.

United Kingdom health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had made a decision to go ahead with the new contract to end uncertainty in the National Health Service (NHS).

The strike action began at 8am today (Wednesday) and will last for 24 hours, patients who have been affected will be contacted to have new appointments arranged.

Junior doctors have pledged to fight on since the announcement and the British Medical Association (BMA) said it would “consider all options”, raising the possibility of further strikes in the battle over pay and conditions.

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

It would have given extra pay to junior doctors who worked at least one in four Saturdays, raising the bar previously set at one in three.

The major point of contention is over weekend pay and whether Saturdays should be considered an ordinary day of the week, or a day when overtime should be paid.

It said 43% of junior doctors – out of a possible 26,000 working on a typical day – have reported for duty on the day shift.

A planned strike on January 26 was called off when the BMA entered last-minute talks with the Government.

“I was lucky to be looked after by some of these junior doctors when I was admitted to hospital”.

The government wants to change this but the BMA rejects the idea that Saturday should be classed as a normal working day.

The head of NHS England Simon Stevens has said that his organisation is “right” to force a change in contracts on junior doctors.