Junior Doctors’ Contracts
Matt Warman Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
My wife is a junior doctor, an F2 currently working in A&E in one of London’s busiest hospitals. I could therefore start by thanking the Secretary of State for livening up my evenings, some of my afternoons and some of my mornings. Instead, I wish to start by saying that however hard colleagues in this place may think we work, precious few of us, as politicians, will ever really understand what it is like to work 10 hours a day and longer, when there is no time to eat, drink or even use the toilet, all while making decisions that are vital for patients and where a single error is both life-threatening and career-ending. Too many doctors feel that the current health service works despite the existing outdated systems, rather than because of them. That is why I hope all parties agree that reform is vital.
The fact that people are working in such intense conditions goes some way to explaining the intense passion that has surrounded this debate. Doctors not only deserve better than the contract they are currently on, but they deserve better than the negotiating process that has turned serious attempts at reform into a debacle where a vacuum has been filled by knowing misinformation from the BMA. Although it is hugely frustrating that the BMA has told many people, wrongly, that they are in line for a 30% pay cut when many will get a 15% pay rise and that many now think the Government want to impose longer working hours when in fact they will be cut, it is understandable. I have seen precious little attempt at genuine honesty from the BMA, but nobody should forget that the union has stepped into a vacuum, and that is why I hope the BMA will come back to the table and negotiate.
We need as little politics in the NHS as possible. We surely need to accept that doctors, however angry and however misinformed, have a commitment to their patients that transcends their commitment to any one hospital, any union or any political party. The low morale that has persisted in the NHS since last winter has not been helped by a lack of negotiation, and it will not be helped by the exhausting anger of a strike. I would like to see a contract that entices people into specialties such as A&E and being a GP, in part because the latter will see fewer visiting the former, and which acknowledges that working on a Saturday morning is already the norm for thousands but says that working late on a Saturday night is distinctly antisocial. Above all, I would like to see the mature approach from the Labour party, the BMA and all those concerned that will put the NHS on a sustainable footing. We have acted in good faith and I hope that the Labour party will see that and not seek to undermine the health service to which we are all indebted.
Post Office Horizon System
Matt Warman Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Andrew Bridgen
My hon. Friend is quite right. When we hear a Post Office spokesperson stating,
“I am really sorry if people have faced lifestyle problems as a result of their having been working in Post Office branches”,
we have to wonder whether the organisation is even aware of the misery it has caused. The fact that Post Office Ltd believes that honest, decent, hard-working people losing their homes, their businesses, their savings, their reputation and, worst of all, in some cases their liberty can be quantified as a “lifestyle change” only serves to show that the organisation is not fit to conduct an inquiry into the matter.
The Post Office mediation scheme has proven to be a sham, Second Sight has proven to be far too independent for the Post Office to stand, and the disdain that has been shown to Members of this House and to sub-postmasters is a disgrace.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituents Mr and Mrs Hedges, who are sub-postmasters, that in this case the Post Office has treated not only them but this House with contempt?
Andrew Bridgen
Indeed. When we look at the cross-section of Members who have raised the matter, many of whom have served at the highest levels of Government, and who all believe that their constituents have been wronged, how can the Post Office believe that it can continue to sweep the matter under the carpet?
It is most interesting that after two years in which the Post Office has consistently claimed that its Horizon system software is robust and 100% reliable, I now have in my position an email clearly showing that the Post Office is now urgently seeking a replacement software system from IBM. I am sure that the Minister can draw his own conclusion from the happy coincidence that the investigation is now closed. It appears to me that it is indeed now sunset for the Horizon system.
It is therefore my belief, and the view of many Members across the House, that the matter must now be taken away from the Post Office and a judicial inquiry set up. The Post Office has abused its privileged position and sought to cover up its failings by way of a wholly non-transparent approach to the mediation process.