Junior Doctors Pay Imposition

'Unfortunate development'

"I'm saying he's lying."

It's becoming quite clear that Jeremy Hunt is becoming increasingly desperate in his fight against the Junior Doctors.


On Newsnight tonight Hunt claimed there wasn't a crisis with Junior Doctors and then he launches an investigation into Junior Doctors morale! He also described the BMA and Junior Doctors as militant....
We will save you some time and money Hunt, the reason for low morale amongst Junior Doctors is your failure to listen to health and safety concerns, failure to negotiate and you dishing out insults before forcing these changes on Doctors.


All of us are acutely aware it doesn't stop here, if Hunt forces these changes through he will then try to impose them on all that work in the NHS.


If you haven't yet signed our urgent petition: 'Jeremy hunt must not impose contracts on junior doctors.' Then please do sign now and share
https://t.co/mV75tUu1Z3

Jeremy Hunt launches urgent inquiry into junior doctors' morale
Doctors have threatened to quit the profession over a new contract

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-launches-urgent-inquiry-into-junior-doctors-morale-a6867801.html

'We can't be stretched thinner': junior doctors respond to Jeremy Hunt
We asked doctors to send us their messages for the health secretary after he decided to impose a new contract on them

Today, I started looking into alternative careers. I’ll work to the bone for the patients, but not for your political agenda.
Christopher Shaw, 27, London

 
How can you, in good conscience, single-handedly destroy the morale of junior doctors around the country with the unilateral imposition of your unfair and unsafe contract and then suggest that setting up an inquiry into why morale is low is a good use of taxpayers’ money?

Despondent Doc, 32, London

 
You fail to listen and engage with us. You insult our intelligence claiming our union has misled us. We are the few who care for the most vulnerable in our society. You will not break us. This is our NHS. This is only the beginning of our fight for the future of the NHS as we know it.

Dr T, 28, Manchester



I’ve seen some terribly, dreadfully, heartbreakingly sad things as a doctor but today is one of the saddest of my career.
Laura Jarvie, 33, Wimbledon

 
I am one of the thousands of juniors deciding to leave England to continue my medical career. I want to work in the NHS but I refuse to work in a system that will neglect my training and make it less safe for both patients and doctors. Well done Mr Hunt.

Jack Stewart, 27, London

 
I have no words to describe the utter despair felt by my friends and colleagues. Continuity of care will be a buzzword of the past with the new rotas. The weekends have less staff currently – instead of increasing funding for staffing they are just going to spread us over seven instead of five days. And this somehow is meant to be safer?

Cate, 27, UK

 
I need the health secretary to stop LYING and start listening. We are already mentally and physically exhausted and can’t be stretched thinner, financially or professionally. He has been warned of the effects of imposition repeatedly and can’t claim ignorance when the NHS collapses in August.

anonymous, 37, Derbyshire

 
I’m one of many British junior doctors working in Australia at the moment and this decision from the government today has put to bed any thoughts or a return home to work anytime soon. Work here is fun, well rewarded with a great work life balance, a far cry from the terribly low regard for which Mr Hunt and the Conservative party hold for not only junior doctors but all public sector workers.

Ian Mckellow, 29, Darwin

 
Today is a sad day in British history. Some of the best and brightest young minds feel devalued and disenfranchised by the Secretary of State for Health. He will forever be remembered as the man who dismantled one of the greatest institutions in the world, the NHS.

Eva Chakraborti, 29, London

 
I am saddened by your decision. I care about my patients and believe in free public healthcare, but I am forced to consider switching profession/leaving England to have a reasonable quality of life. I hope you have a plan to cope with losing so many doctors.

anonymous, 30, Oxford

 
I am Pan. I have spent years absorbing and carrying the tears of British families who hugged me even when I could not do anything more – only to become demoralised by your government. I am going home, to Greece. Your children will be the ultimate judge.

Panagis Kyrtatos, 31, London

 
You have been met with overwhelming opposition to this contract at every stage of its development. 98% of junior doctors said they were willing to strike because of it, an unprecedented majority. Why have you refused to listen to the concerns of the doctors who work in the very hospitals you are destroying?

Joshua, 28, York

 
You have so far done unimaginable harm to the public and our health service. However it is not too late. You could actually apologise and listen. Please do that, soon, and win back the respect of the country.

Ben White, 33, London

 
On another 12-day stretch, living 200 miles from my husband I am overcome with uncertainty and sadness. Having spent four nights with my husband in the last month, the sacrifice no longer seems worth it. My place within the NHS is no longer compatible with the life that I choose. I choose life.

Henrietta Creasy, 29, Leeds

 
Having worked 117 hours in the last nine days (including all weekend!), I have nothing but contempt for the way in which you have lied to the public about our working hours. Your contract removes vital safeguards that prevent trusts from overworking doctors. I will be unsafe for my patients under your contract.

anonymous, 30, England

 
Your imposition of an unfair and unsafe contract is a massive risk to patient safety, which you claim to want to protect. How can you justify your actions when 54,000 junior doctors think you’re wrong?

Sarah, 23, West Yorkshire


http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/11/we-cant-be-stretched-thinner-junior-doctors-respond-to-jeremy-hunt

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/121262

Petition Jeremy Hunt to resume meaningful contract negotiations with the BMA.
J.Hunt is to impose a new contract. As incoming junior doctors, with GMC registration, starting work as an FY1 in August 2016 and junior doctors working within the NHS we will refuse to sign the imposed contract and will continue strike action on behalf of the medical profession and greater public.
►More details  Sign this petition

sassy wrote:Nicko, are you not grateful for what doctors did for you?   Haven't you recognised how much we rely on them, what would happen to us if the NHS crumbled?   It is hateful to prefer people to save lives than to take them?  Wow, you have a very odd set of priorities.  Next time you are at the hospital, remember to tell them that you don't think the amount of time they work should be limited etc.

sassy wrote:FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   With what they do and how long they have to train and the responsiblies they have?   Are you nuts.  Frigging politicians get more than that.   Considering what they have done for you, I think you are bloody ungrateful.   Blasted footballers get more than that.  Little oiks standing on a stage and singing pop songs get more than then.  Where are your priorities FGS!

Jeremy Hunt co-authored book calling for NHS to be replaced with private insurance
'Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party' called for the 'denationalisation' of the NHS

Jeremy Hunt co-authored a policy pamphlet that called for the NHS to be replaced by an insurance system.

The 2005 policy book, called Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party, was a collection of writings authored by a group of Tory MPs.
Amongst other ideas, the book contained a blueprint for replacing the NHS with an insurance market system – and called for the private sector to be brought in.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html

sassy wrote:I posted it above Eds, but it absolutely tells it like it is, good for him.

nicko wrote:Ask a soldier on the front line if he'd like £18 an hour for being shot at and risking his life 24 hours a day.

eddie wrote:

sassy wrote:I posted it above Eds, but it absolutely tells it like it is, good for him.

Oops sorry. I just came across it somewhere else and had to post it!

Fuzzy Zack wrote:

nicko wrote:Ask a soldier on the front line if he'd like £18 an hour for being shot at and risking his life 24 hours a day.

I think the soldier who's been shot will be grateful that the Doctor saved his life. He'd probably want him to be paid more.

Frankly, I don't want a cheap Doctor. Like Dr Nick "Hi everybody!" Reviera!

Fuzzy Zack wrote:

nicko wrote:Ask a soldier on the front line if he'd like £18 an hour for being shot at and risking his life 24 hours a day.

I think the soldier who's been shot will be grateful that the Doctor saved his life. He'd probably want him to be paid more.

Frankly, I don't want a cheap Doctor. Like Dr Nick "Hi everybody!" Reviera!

Did Jeremy Hunt just try to sack every junior doctor in England?

The announcement that Jeremy Hunt was to impose a new contract on the junior doctors in England was met in trade union offices up and down the country with disbelief and shock.  Such a clearly desperate act of bravado on the part of the Secretary of State revealed a level of recklessness and ignorance of the basic facts of employment law.

Imposing a new contract without consent requires every one of the 53,000 junior doctors to be dismissed from their post and offered a new post under the imposed contract terms.


That’s right – sack every single doctor in England.

It isn’t without precedent – across public services, many employers have considered this as a last resort.  Most, however, have backed away.  It is fraught with legal risks – in 2007 a group of 200+ UNISON members in Stroud District Council were awarded £250,000 compensation over similar moves. Imagine the sum payable to 50,000+ junior doctors?  Staff dismissed can accept the new contract and claim unfair dismissal, as shown by the Hogg vs Dover College case.

53,000 employment tribunal applications anyone?

Of course, the act of imposing a new contract falls to the employer.

Fortunately for junior doctors, Jeremy Hunt is not the employer.  His Government were so keen to hand over our NHS to the private sector that the Secretary of State was stripped of many employers’ powers under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

The sound of jaws dropping at the sheer stupidity of threatened imposition was drowned out by the NHS employers retreating from any perceived support for this act.  Employers in the NHS know that it would be destructive, divisive and damage already rock bottom morale. Most worrying of all, what happens if junior doctors, on reading their dismissal letters and looking at their new contract decide that enough is enough and leave the NHS? How many doctors in my region of Bristol and the West of England would look over the bridge to Wales, where a different Goverment runs the NHS with a different approach? And how many more would leave to work abroad, joining the growing exodus of talent, a fact so often overlooked by commentators desperate to publish panic tales of migrants swarming the country while ignoring the fact that our real problem is an increasing shortage of skilled staff in the health and social care sector?

I visited picket lines in Bristol yesterday and talked to junior doctors, who have trained for years. They love their jobs and want to make sure they work safely and do the best for patients. These people deserve better from the government and the secretary of state.

All of us do – and the overwhelming support for the strike from patients, NHS staff and two thirds of the public show growing demand for a different approach. 2020 can’t come soon enough and we need to keep up the pressure on the Tories. As they move to sack our doctors during #HeartUnions week, there’s only one side to be on.

Joanne Kaye is the regional secretary for Unison South West.


http://leadersoftheopposition.com/2016/02/12/did-jeremy-hunt-just-try-to-sack-every-junior-doctor-in-england/

nicko wrote:There's some heartless bastards on this forum.

sassy wrote:OFGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a video above.  Watch it.  Then you won't need to ask.

Raggamuffin wrote:Is all this fuss just because doctors want to be paid more for working on Saturdays?

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:OFGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a video above.  Watch it.  Then you won't need to ask.

That would be a "yes" then.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:OFGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is a video above.  Watch it.  Then you won't need to ask.

That would be a "yes" then.

Hospitals may refuse to impose Jeremy Hunt’s new contract on junior doctors
Tory unrest grows over health secretary’s gamble as opt-out could lead to a flood of local deals with trusts

Hospitals may go it alone and refuse to impose the new contract on junior doctors proposed by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, on NHS trainee medics from August.

The Guardian has established that none of the 152 foundation trust hospitals in England will be obliged to force their junior doctors to accept the deal and can instead offer them better terms.

The disclosure of an opt-out for top hospitals threatens to derail the health secretary’s controversial push to impose new terms and conditions on all 45,000 junior doctors that has sparked their bitter and long-running dispute.

Labour claimed the loophole showed that Hunt’s plan was falling apart. “Jeremy Hunt’s decision to impose the junior doctors’ contract seems to be unravelling with every day that goes by,” said the shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander.

“The fact that hospitals are trying to find ways around contract imposition underlines the extent to which the decision to impose a contract that nobody wants would destroy morale in the NHS.”

Hunt is facing increasing criticism over his move, including from fellow Conservatives. Dr Dan Poulter MP, who was a health minister until last May and led the early negotiations on the junior doctors’ new contract in 2014, described Hunt’s decision on Thursday as “a dark day for the NHS and the future of medicine”.

The Department of Health confirmed that foundation trusts, which are semi-independent of NHS control, could not be compelled to introduce the contract. “Foundation trusts are not mandated to bring in the new contract. They can negotiate locally. However, [non-foundation] trusts are [obliged to use Hunt’s contract],” a spokesman said.

The opt-out could create a free-for-all among foundation trusts over the next few months as they try to recruit enough junior doctors to start as trainees in a medical specialism in early August.

Alastair Currie, an employment law partner at Bevan Brittan specialising in NHS contracts, said a few trusts – including Southend in Essex and Guy’s and St Thomas’s in London – had already introduced terms and conditions for some staff that differed slightly from those imposed by all other trusts.
The BMA, usually opposed to local deals, may see terms offered by individual trusts as preferable to Hunt’s contract. It opposes any of Saturday becoming part of a junior doctor’s normal working week, but Hunt has designated that 7am to 5pm on Saturdays should be included.
Labour accused Hunt of misleading parliament on Thursday by claiming in his Commons statement that an array of “senior NHS leaders” backed imposition. Thirteen of the 20 supposed signatories of a letter of support have since disowned it and said they do not back Hunt.

A growing number of medical organisations are warning that Hunt’s move will worsen the NHS’s shortage of medical staff. In a strongly worded statement, the Royal College of Surgeons of England said it feared imposition could irreparably harm the NHS’s relationship with doctors and deter young medics abroad from choosing to work in England.

“Doctors in training are essential for the delivery of safe, high-quality patient care. The imposition of a contract takes us even further away from a goal to make the NHS the most attractive place in the world for doctors to work,” it said in a joint statement with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

The organisations branded Hunt’s decision “extremely regrettable” and stressed their view that “a contract must not be imposed”. Imposition would exacerbate junior doctors’ already low morale, they said.

Hunt maintains that enforcing the contract is necessary in order to let hospital bosses recruit more junior doctors to work at weekends and usher in the so-called seven-day NHS. But the surgical colleges disputed his claim that doing so would reduce death rates among patients admitted to hospital at the weekend. “This contract alone will not resolve that issue, not least because most junior doctors already work at weekends,” they said.

The BMA has pledged to fight the imposition and is considering what action to take. Its junior doctors committee meets on 20 February to decide its next move, which may include a legal challenge to Hunt.
More than 50 junior doctors at St George’s university hospitals NHS foundation trust have written a joint letter to its chief executive, Miles Scott, who is on record as opposing the imposition of the contract, asking him to refuse to force through the deal.

“We were also grateful for your clarification that you ‘do not support imposition’ of the new junior doctor contract,” their letter reads. “As a foundation trust, you are not mandated to bring in the new contract for junior doctors, as you can decide to negotiate locally.

“In view of this and in light of your statement today, we would be grateful for your reassurance that St George’s will not be imposing a new contract on junior doctors.”

Scott was one of the 14 chief executives of trusts cited as supporting the Dalton review’s proposal for the government to do “whatever it deems necessary” to get the contract through and who later denied they had agreed to that stance.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/12/hospitals-jeremy-hunt-junior-doctors-contract?CMP=twt_gu