The dispute is over a new contract due to be introduced in August 2016.
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Changes to the Junior Doctors” Contract, set to be brought in by the Government next year, include scrapping safeguards stopping doctors working when they are too exhausted, and reclassifying which hours are “normal’.
Writing in a letter to Saturday’s Telegraph, senior NHS managers say they “understand the vitally important role that junior doctors play” and the need to ensure their work is “recognised and rewarded fairly”.
The letter says: “As leaders of the health service, we want to see the future of our junior doctors, and future clinical leaders secured”.
Junior doctors across Lancashire could soon take strike action over reforms to working hours and pay.
By Sunday afternoon, the junior doctors’ letter, sent to Hunt on Saturday and a copy of which has been given to the Guardian, had been supported by 1,618 junior doctors, 193 consultants or Global Positioning System and 198 medical students, most members of the BMA.
In a detailed and emollient letter to Dr Johann Malawana, the chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, Hunt also sought to banish widely held fears that junior doctors – whose vital contribution to the NHS he lauded – would soon have to start working the 90-hour weeks that their predecessors did.
This is a reference to financial deterrents that force hospitals to pay a doctor significantly more once they have worked more than 48 hours in a week. Many doctors also feel it’s unfair that they could face pay cuts up to 40 per cent.
Mr Hunt assured doctors proposed changes for pay to rise with training and responsibility progression – rather in annual increments – would be “cost neutral, rather than cost saving”.
“Around 3,500 doctors applied for a certificate to work overseas in just 10 days following the imposition of the new contract”.
Now, in an attempt to diffuse the heated row over the unpopular new contract, Mr Hunt said he will not extend trainee doctors’ normal week to include working up to 10pm on Saturdays. I can give you a categorical assurance that I am not seeking to save any money from the junior doctors’ paybill.
“Many doctors are feeling disillusioned and are voting with their feet – leaving the NHS and going to work overseas. I want to see a work review system with teeth that ensures that juniors are not exploited and that addresses issues of overworking if they arise”. “I would be pleased to discuss in negotiations how far plain time working extends on Saturdays”, he said.
And a “flexible pay premia” would be used to support recruitment into specialities with dire shortages such as A&E medicine and general practice.
“That doesn’t mean making doctors work longer hours, it means working differently to improve patient safety”, a spokesperson said, repeating assurances that it was not cost-cutting.
Dr Malawana welcomed the letter, but said the BMA was “urgently seeking clarification” on a few of the matters Mr Hunt raised.
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A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “We have given the BMA Junior Doctors” Committee four cast-iron assurances to encourage them to come back to the table and negotiate on a new contract that’s fairer for doctors and safer for patients.
