Junior Doctors Contracts

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let us be absolutely clear. The people who are responsible for the strike tomorrow are those who choose to do the BMA’s urging and withdraw emergency care for patients. That is where the responsibility lies.

Let me deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s point directly. There are a couple of trusts in the country that have been good at introducing seven-day standards in urgent and emergency care, but my judgment, and that of the Government, is that it would not be possible under the current contractual structures to roll that out across the whole NHS. Those trusts happen to have some of the NHS’s most outstanding leaders, and we need to learn from what they have done, but we also need to make it possible for those same things to happen at all hospitals, including the right hon. Gentleman’s own.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Those of us who have served our time as junior doctors understand the hard work and very long hours that they do in a system that has had too few doctors since its inception. Many of us believe that there is no dispute about pay and conditions that justifies putting patients’ lives at risk.

There has been some confusion about what the Government have meant by a seven-day NHS. There has always been a seven-day emergency service, but it is too patchy across the country, which needs to be addressed. That is different, however, from a seven-day elective service, which simply cannot be achieved by doctors alone and requires bacteriologists, haematologists, and radiographers. Might my right hon. Friend get the Government’s case to be more clearly defined in future so that we know what we are trying to achieve? There is little difference between what the Government and doctors want, notwithstanding the fact that the BMA has behaved rather badly.

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is right; the tragedy here is that what the Government want, which is to eliminate the weekend effect, whereby there are higher mortality rates for those admitted at weekends, is exactly what every doctor wants. We should be sitting around the table discussing how we can achieve a proper, consistent, seven-day service for urgent and emergency care. When it comes to elective provision, that is not part of our plans, although some trusts are operating elective care on a seven-day basis—that is their choice. We are trying to reduce the higher mortality rates for weekend admissions, and that will be at the heart of our vision for a true seven-day NHS.