As expected, Jeremy Hunt has just announced in the Commons that he will impose the junior doctor contract after he was advised that there was no longer any chance of an agreement with the British Medical Association on the issue. And as expected, the BMA has said that it does not accept the contract and is considering ‘all options open’ to it in response.
In response to the Health Secretary, Heidi Alexander warned that the new contract ‘could amount to the biggest gamble with patient safety’ that the Commons has seen because of the exodus of junior doctors from the NHS that this would cause. The SNP’s rather formidable Dr Philippa Whitford was a little more measured in her response, telling the Chamber that she did see that there had been progress, but that there were still problems with the contract, including whether the guardians who are supposed to impose fines for breaches to doctors’ working hours will really work as well as expected.
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