Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has claimed junior doctors would get an 11 per cent pay rise.
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BMA council chair Mark Porter said: “We are releasing this information at this early stage because we want to give as much notice as possible”. The row broke out after the BMA warned, among other things, the new junior doctor contract could lead to the medics working more hours.
He said maximum working hours per week would fall from 91 to 72 under the new deal.
The professional body for trainee surgeons has snubbed Jeremy Hunt, declining an invitation to talks over the impending junior doctor strike and telling the Health Secretary to get back around the table with the doctors union.
“The BMA has been explicit in what it needs to change in junior doctor contract proposals”.
The BMA spokesman added: “The BMA is clear that we want to work with the Government to deliver a contract that is good for patients, junior doctors and the NHS as a whole”.
“The Government’s refusal to work with us through genuine negotiations, and its continued threat to impose an unsafe and unfair contract leaves us with no alternative”.
In his email, Dr Porter updated members on legal advice the BMA has obtained from labour relations expert John Hendy QC, following suggestions by an NHS trust that the proposed industrial action was in breach of the Trade Union Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
“In short, it is counsel’s opinion that the suggestions made by the trust are seriously misleading”.
Junior doctors could stage three days of strike action next month, amid an escalating dispute with the government over new work contracts. “And that of course is one of the dilemmas about doctors taking industrial action – we don’t do it lightly at all, we don’t do it lightly – but the point is to keep patients safe while exerting pressure on employers on the dispute that we’re in”.
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“Junior doctors are a very important part of the medical workforce, a substantial number, but there are also a substantial number left over of consultants and other senior doctors such as staff and associate specialist doctors”.
