The new contract changes proposed by health minister Jeremy Hunt would change anti-social hours by making Saturday between 7am and 10pm part of a Junior Doctor’s normal working week.
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“The government’s shambolic handling of this process from start to finish has totally alienated a generation of junior doctors – the hospital doctors and general practitioners of the future, and there is a real risk that some will vote with their feet”, Dr. Malawana said.
Studies show that mortality rates are higher at weekends when staffing is reduced.
“I don’t think the government have any idea how well they have undermined and demoralised us by trying to ram this through”.
London North West Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Northwick Park Hospital, said some elective operations and non-urgent outpatient appointments had been cancelled and warned of longer waiting times in A&E.
When junior doctor Dagan Lonsdale, a registrar a Kings College Hospital, attempted to question Mr Hunt when he came across him at Millbank TV studios, near Westminster, Mr Hunt ignored him.
The health secretary Jeremy Hunt will impose a controversial new contract on junior doctors who went on strike yesterday.
In a statement, he said: “Junior doctors already work around the clock, 7 days a week and they do so under their existing contract”.
THE county’s junior doctors have been left distraught after Ministers announced today they will impose a controversial new contract on them.
Emergency care will be provided but junior doctors will be on the picket line until 8am Thursday, February 11.
“In such a situation, any government must do what is right for both patients and doctors”, Hunt said in parliament.
NHS England has said that 1,150 planned inpatient procedures have been cancelled as a result of the planned strike, alongside 1,734 day procedures. During negotiations, the government backtrack slightly, offering to change that to 5pm.
“Patients should attend their appointment unless they are contacted by the Trust directly”.
The government could simply impose the new contracts, and “we’re not going to remove that from the table”, the souce added.
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Dr Emma Gordon, 40, who works at the Bury hospital, said as well as the public’s support the hospital management had been “wonderful again”.
