Junior Doctors Contract

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. and learned Friend is correct to have raised that before and I can reassure him that we have subsequently started a very big piece of work to look at those exact issues. The difficulty is that throughout their training junior doctors are rotated every six months. That is particularly disruptive to family life or, for example, if they have a partner and one is sent to Sheffield and the other to Bristol. We are seeing what we can do to deal with that. The other issue that we are looking at is that of people who for family reasons discover that they have a caring responsibility, maybe for children or for a parent with dementia, and want to switch to a specialty that may not have quite so many unsocial hours, and whether it is possible to novate their training across from one specialty to another, which does not happen at present.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

We are all congratulating each other on the measured tone of this debate, but Dr Johann Malawana has said in very measured tones:

“Given the result, both sides must look again at the proposals and there should be no transition to a new contract until further talks take place.”

Will the Health Secretary commit to hold further talks in order to avoid further conflict and the possibility that he may provoke further strike action if he does not? If he provokes further industrial action among the junior doctors, the blame will lie fairly and squarely at his open door.

[Mr Hunt]

Let me tell the hon. Lady the words that Dr Malawana actually said:

“I will happily state that I think this is a good deal.”

He talked about junior doctors benefiting from

“massively strengthened areas of safety precautions…equalities improvements, improvements to whistleblowing protection and appropriate pay for unsocial hours.”

He thought this deal was a big step forward. As I said, if I thought that there was any prospect of further negotiations leading to a consensus that could get the support of the BMA membership, that is what I would be doing, but my honest assessment of the situation—given that the people who most strongly opposed the Government recommended accepting this deal and still they were not listened to—is that there is no such prospect, and I therefore need to take the difficult decision that I have taken this afternoon.