What an absolute Hunt.
On Wednesday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt won his High Court battle with junior doctors over the legality of their proposed new contract.
A group called Justice for Health were hopeful that a legal challenge against the new deal affecting medics in England would prevail, but the court ruled against their case.
They claimed that the new contract was “unsafe and unsustainable”, and that the government did not have the power to impose such changes, but Mr Justice Green rejected their contention.
In total there have been six separate strikes against the change, but Wednesday’s ruling means that the new deal will start to be phased in as soon as next week.
Although basic pay will increase on average, other terms such as what constitutes unsociable hours will be affected. For instance, day hours on Saturdays will now be paid at a normal rate, whilst other night and weekend shift rates will be lowered.
Guaranteed pay increases linked to experience will also be scrapped, and replaced with a system based on training stages.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said:
“We welcome this clear decision by the judge that the secretary of state acted entirely lawfully. We must now move on from this dispute to the crucial job of making sure patients get the same high standards of urgent and emergency care every day of the week, which involves more than the junior doctors’ contract.
“We urge the BMA to remove all threat of further industrial action so we can work constructively with junior doctors to address their wider concerns and better recognise their vital importance to the NHS.”
The changes will put all 54,000 doctors below the level of consultant on to the altered terms and conditions.
