New push to resolve junior doctors’ dispute

The Junior Doctors strike is their first walkout in 40 years.

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn voiced support for the junior doctors, saying in a statement: “Their treatment by this government has been nothing short of appalling”.

Sandwell Hospital in West Bromwich has declared a “level four” incident and yesterday told its junior doctors to report for work as usual due to concerns about patient safety, but they have refused to do so.

Hospitals had to cancel 4,000 operations on Tuesday and thousands of appointments were scrapped when doctors joined picket lines for the 24-hour action.

Ahead of the reconvened talks at the conciliation service ACAS on Thursday, Hunt said that previous negotiations had made good progress, resolving all but one of the issues put forward by the union.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday urged the doctors to abandon what he said was a “damaging” strike.

The strike really could happen because the government is determined not to cave into the junior doctors demands over their new contract.

Trainee doctors in England will provide emergency-only care during the strike, similar to the medical service offered on Christmas Day in the country. BMA council chairman Dr Mark Porter claims there are still “some serious issues about patient safety and recognition of junior doctors’ contributions that need to be sorted” which he says the Government is still refusing to acknowledge. The BMA is concerned about pay for weekend working, career progression and safeguards to protect doctors from being over-worked.

Plans for the new contract were drawn up in 2012, but after talks broke down the government announced it would impose a contract from August 2016.

“Our clinical teams will be working to minimise any disruption as a result of the current pressure or the planned industrial action”.

The row centres on a new contract which the government says will increase doctors’ pay by 11 per cent, but at the same time curb payments doctors now receive for working unsociable hours on the weekends and in the evenings.

This strike action will be followed by one further 24-hour strike on Tuesday January 26 and a nine-hour walk out on Wednesday February 10.

Fewer people are also applying for medical school, presumably because they have heard the rumours that junior doctors in England are getting a raw deal.

“The thing is they want the NHS to become a seven-day service, some services such as accident and emergency already run every day of the week, but we simply don’t have the resources to run every service seven days a week”.