Junior Doctors Contract

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend speaks with great wisdom and experience. He is absolutely right to say that tackling the morale deficit in the NHS has to be a key priority. That is why we have to recognise that for doctors—particularly junior doctors starting out on their medical careers—the most depressing and dispiriting thing of all is when they cannot give the patients in front of them the care that they want to. That is why we are looking at a number of things to make it easier for doctors to improve the quality of care. One of the things that is particularly challenging and that we in this House have to think about and discuss a lot more is how difficult doctors and nurses find it to speak out if they see poor care, or if they or a colleague make a mistake, because they are frightened of litigation, a General Medical Council referral, or disciplinary action by their trust. The problem is that people then do not go through the learning processes necessary to prevent those mistakes from happening again. The key is creating a supportive environment, in which learning can really happen, in hospitals.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

If I believed that the benefits for patients of pushing ahead with this contract outweighed the impact that its imposition will have on junior doctor morale, recruitment and retention, I would support the Health Secretary, but I do not believe that. Can he tell the House which clause of which Act of Parliament gives him the power to force hospitals to introduce the contract? If he cannot tell us that, can he outline the legislative basis on which Health Education England could withhold funding from trusts that choose not to proceed with it?

[Mr Hunt]

Health Education England is absolutely clear that it has to run national training programmes, and that is why it has to have standard contracts across the country. As the hon. Lady knows well from her previous role on the Front Bench, in reality foundation trusts have the legal right to set their own terms and conditions, but they currently follow a national contract; that is their choice, but because they do that, I used the phrase “introduction of a new contract” this afternoon. I expect, on the basis of current practice, that the contract will be adopted throughout the NHS.

I enjoyed working with the hon. Lady when she was shadow Health Secretary, but on this issue, she was quite wrong, because she saw the WhatsApp leaks, which revealed that the British Medical Association had no willingness or desire for a negotiated settlement in February, precisely when she was saying at the Dispatch Box that I was the one being intransigent. She gave a running commentary on the dispute at every stage, but when those leaks happened, she said absolutely nothing. She should set the record straight and apologise to the House for getting the issue totally wrong.