More than 37,000 junior doctors across the country – including 2,000 in the Thames Valley – voted in favour of industrial action past year, although a planned strike in December was halted the day before when talks reopened.
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He spoke in parliament after receiving a letter from the Government’s chief negotiator Sir David Dalton saying that he believed negotiations with the BMA on working unsociable hours could go no further.
The protestors also claimed the removal of safeguards on the amount of hours junior doctors are asked to work would be unsafe for patients.
The Health Secretary has announced that he will impose the new contract on NHS junior doctors without finding a compromise with the British Medical Association (BMA).
NHS junior doctors staged their second strike of the year yesterday after the British Medical Association rejected an offer from the Government.
A junior doctor in Merseyside warned of further strike action if the dispute with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is not resolved.
He accused Mr Hunt of “ploughing ahead with proposals that are fundamentally unfair”.
Tens of thousands of junior doctors in England held a historic strike Wednesday against government plans to slash overtime.
One of the key sticking points is a disagreement over payment for weekend shifts and whether Saturday should be treated as a normal working day.
Instead the BMA again called on the Health Secretary to accept its own proposed pay model and withdraw his threat to force through changes, even though the Government has refused to “remove that from the table”.
It would have given extra pay to junior doctors who worked at least one in four Saturdays, raising the bar previously set at one in three.
“We have now agreed the vast majority of the contract detail with the BMA but it’s a great shame that they have broken the agreement we made with ACAS to discuss the outstanding issue of Saturday working and pay for unsocial hours”. The BMA is arguing for premium rates of pay on Saturdays to be protected.
“This is clearly a political fight for the government rather than an attempt to come to a reasonable solution for all junior doctors”, Johann Malawana, MD, BMA junior physician committee chair, said in the statement.
“Patients suffer when governments drag their feet on high hospital mortality rates, and this government is determined our NHS should offer the safest, highest quality care in the world”, Hunt said.
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Shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander told Mr Hunt: “Imposing a contract is a sign of failure, it’s about time you realised that”.
