Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations
Diana Johnson Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Ben Gummer
It would make a significant difference. Now that the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition is sitting on the Front Bench, he might like to take note of the fact that if we have a united political response condemning strikes that affect patients and their safety, it helps to bring negotiations to a more profitable end.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Hull royal infirmary is under a black alert, which means that local people have been told not to attend the hospital unless it is a matter of life and death. Will the Minister tell me how the insults the Secretary of State has been throwing around over the weekend, and those that he himself has made today about hard-working and dedicated junior doctors, will help people in Hull, who need a functioning NHS? How will those insults improve the morale of those doctors?
Ben Gummer
The hon. Lady does dangerous work if she tries to conflate the comments that I and others have made about the leadership of the BMA with the motivations of junior doctors, none of whom I have impugned. I recognise that junior doctors work incredibly hard, care passionately about their patients and have a vocational drive to do the best for the people they care for, but that is different from an organisation that refuses to talk, refuses to negotiate, lies to its members and is very slippery in the statements it puts out to the press.