Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Margaret Greenwood
Main Page: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)Department Debates - View all Margaret Greenwood's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations
Margaret Greenwood Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
It is, and that is why we need to move ahead in fairly short order. Ultimately, if staff contracts are not reformed across the service, those who will suffer most will be patients, and what will be most affected is the consistency of care that they receive at weekends.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The shadow Health Secretary asked the Minister if he could list the hospitals in which there were currently not enough junior doctors working at weekends. He could not answer that question, so I will give the Minister another chance. Will he name them for us now?
Ben Gummer
Evidence given to the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration made clear that rostering was made more difficult by the current plain-time terms in the contract. That is why it has been on the table for several years and has been the subject of parts of our discussions with the BMA, when we have been able to have them. It is also why one of the leading chief executives in the country, Sir David Dalton, who led the latest round of talks, has pressed the BMA to come and talk about Saturdays specifically and plain time in general. The BMA has refused to speak about either.