NHS: Winter Preparedness Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Julian Lewis
Main Page: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)Department Debates - View all Julian Lewis's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
NHS: Winter Preparedness
Julian Lewis Excerpts(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I hope that the Secretary of State will give a little more consideration to the rather important point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) about 16 and 17-year-olds not being able to be vaccinated.
If any junior doctor—whether or not a member of the BMA, but particularly if a member of the BMA—decides on ethical grounds to go into work during the period of the strike, and then faces sanctions from the BMA, will the Government protect them?
Wes Streeting
Two things: first, we will certainly give serious consideration to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy)—the JCVI will do that in the usual way, and we follow its advice —and secondly, resident doctors have been to work in previous rounds of strikes, and I have not been made aware of bullying or intimidation of them. Of course, that should not be happening, and if it does, my priority will be protecting doctors who are doing the right thing. My expectation is that no one will be intimidated for making the moral and ethical judgment that going to work is the right thing to do by patients, by their colleagues and by the NHS this Christmas.