A spokesman for the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) has announced that talks between the Government and the British Medical Association (BMA) would resume on Thursday at 10am, continuing on Friday. Picture by Simon Hulme.
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Mr Mortimer told the BBC: “I’m really hopeful that when the BMA return to the talks we can give junior doctors more confidence in both the pay offer that we’re putting to them, but also the improved protections we want to put in place around their safety”.
The BMA said junior doctors would take strike action for the first time in 40 years after the latest round of negotiations in the long-running row ended last week.
Unless an agreement is reached, a further 48 hour strike is planned for Tuesday, January 26 and a full walk out of all junior doctors on February 10.
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, claimed that 15 of the 16 issues had been resolved.
“We had people dropping off hot drinks and food, telling us their stories, one lady made us cakes and said ‘This hospital saved my life I am behind you 100%’ which was just lovely”.
“2) Plans are in place across the country to deliver emergency care but in some places the NHS service may be under significant pressure”. Only 2% of those questioned thought that it was about the safety of patients, only 1% thought it was about the safety of healthcare staff and only 3% thought it was about a disagreement over seven day services in the NHS.
“This is something that every other bit of the economy has done. It is time for this government to apologise to junior doctors and negotiate a fair deal that gets our NHS working again”.
Health officials fear that the further stoppages will have more than twice the impact of Tuesday’s strike – with thousands of operations having to be cancelled on days before and after industrial action in a bid to “clear the decks”.
Trainees also staged local Meet the Doctor engagement events in Yorkshire, while some even helped in the Leeds flood relief effort by clearing warehouses in Kirkstall hit by Storm Eva.
The contracts that sparked the dispute were offered in November and include an 11 percent basic pay rise. The BMA fears that proposals to change the maximum number of working hours per week will put patients at risk in the hands of over-worked, exhausted doctors.
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Danny Mortimer, the head of NHS Employers, which is representing the Government in negotiations, said he was “desperate” to avoid a repeat of the strike.
