North Devon’s junior doctors to strike over proposed contract changes

Shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander said the situation made her “angry and sad” adding: “It didn’t have to be this way”.

Mr Hunt earlier said the NHS will do all it can to keep patients safe if strikes go ahead, but he insisted there is a need to bring in seven-day services.

More than 13,000 members of the public, doctors and consultants have signed an Express.co.uk petition urging the Government to scrap the contract and go back to the negotiating table.

Junior doctors in Somerset have joined thousands across England who voted overwhelmingly in favour of strikes in a bitter row with the Government.

The BMA has argued the Government could avoid strikes by offering assurances and lifting the threat that the contract will be imposed.

Academic studies of doctors’ strikes in previous countries have found that they have tended not to increase death rates – largely because elective care is suspended reallocated to deal with emergencies.

“Do you agree with me that over the course of the next week, everything that can be done, should be done to stop the three days of planned industrial action?”

She said patient safety was the priority and the hospital would be in touch with patients affected.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis linked the dispute to a crisis in morale among the wider workforce in the health service.

It is the first time doctors have staged industrial action since 2012 and the first time junior doctors have gone out on strike since 1975. “If you want doctors to work more hours and more weekends you need to employ more people”.

Ms Alexander branded Sir Bruce’s intervention as “an insult to their [junior doctors’] professionalism”.

Urging the BMA to call off its “damaging strike”, he said: “I don’t rule out the involvement of third parties in the future but for now the right thing to do is to call off the strike”.

“After starting negotiations three and a half years ago in order to seek to conclude this, that door remains open”.

Spokesman of Patient Concern Roger Goss said: “What happened to the promise that the interests of patients are paramount and we put patients first?”

It said it had contacted the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) for mediation with Mr Hunt and NHS employers.

The GMB’s Rehana Azam added: “NHS staff are the backbone of the NHS yet the secretary of state continues to pick unnecessary fights with them”. This came despite concerns from Patients safety groups and appeal from Hunt to return to talks before bringing mediators.

“We regret the inevitable disruption that this will cause”, said BMA chairman Dr Mark Porter.

More than 37,000 doctors were balloted by the BMA, with 76 per cent taking part in the vote. I would be very surprised.

“There are no preconditions beyond what the secretary has said about his right to ensure a manifesto commitment is delivered”. “Why not just get on with it?”

Mr Burt said: “Because the last time an independent body looked at this matter, which is what the Secretary of State did after negotiations broke down before it went to an independent body, the Doctors and Dentists Review Board, the BMA took part in that, they made representations to it”. The NHS staff, therefore, by implication are the best in the world.

The seniors at my hospital have expressed the utmost support for the junior doctors, because they’ve realised the proposed terms aren’t fair.

“We want to sit around a table and negotiate”.