Junior Doctors Contract

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend speaks very wisely. I would certainly very much like to do that. It does take two to tango, but the Government certainly want to do everything they can to work with all the leaders of the different bodies in the medical profession, partly for the reason my hon. Friend gave—that the country is very preoccupied with even bigger issues—but partly because there is so much pressure on the NHS frontline, and it is just counterproductive to exhaust so much energy on these disputes when we could talk our way around them and avoid them.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I am always last, but I am very grateful for being asked to speak. Does the Secretary of State have any indication of how many junior doctors actually read the contract, rather than relying on the BMA or rumours? The junior doctors I have talked to have not read it, and one said it was too long.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for her interest—it is last but not least, for sure, in her case. Many junior doctors are now aware of the bones of the contract. I am sure some of them have not read it, just as others have. However, I think the issue has been that a lot of them have read it and have felt that it does not answer every single problem they face today as a junior doctor. Unfortunately, there is no contract that can solve every single pressure they face at the stroke of a pen, and I suspect that that is why a number of them voted to reject the contract. What I would say to them is that we have a contract that is an improvement on what they had before, so let us go with that and try to address the other issues as best and as quickly as we can.