Junior Doctors Contract

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

I, too, am disappointed by the outcome of the ballot yesterday. It has to be recognised that it reflects a real desperation and unhappiness among junior doctors, who are dealing with increased demand and pressure. They have felt that, at times, the tone of the negotiations has left a lot to be desired. The threat of imposition was there from the start, and they felt that hanging over them.

I welcome several things in the statement, and I absolutely welcome its very measured tone. I welcome the attempt to tackle the gender pay gap, to deal with unhappy foundationers and to limit hours. I would say that junior doctors’ biggest concern is rota gaps. In some specialties, the rate is as high as one in four, so one doctor covers the role of two. That is a real patient safety issue, and patient safety is meant to be the whole point of the contract. I welcome the fact that the contract will be phased in, and I call on the Secretary of State to ensure absolutely that, as this goes forward, he will learn, because junior doctors’ concern is about how we spread a short-staffed workforce across more days. I called for the contract to be phased in through a trial, and it is being phased in, but in a different way. We need to recognise the pain that the vote represents.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her constructive comments, which are born of her NHS experience. She is right: we are phasing in the contract carefully to make sure that we learn lessons. She is absolutely right to talk about rota gaps. Unfortunately, the problem of rota gaps cannot be solved at a stroke on signing a contract; it has to do with making sure that we have a big enough supply of doctors in the NHS to fill those rota gaps. We now have much greater transparency about the safety levels that are appropriate in different hospitals; that is one of the lessons that we learned post Mid Staffs. We are investing more in the NHS in this Parliament. We recruited an extra 9,300 doctors in the last Parliament and we are increasing our investment in the NHS in this Parliament, so that we can continue to boost the doctor workforce in the NHS. In the long run, that is how we will deal with the rota gap issue; but unfortunately, that cannot be done overnight.