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| Jeremy Hunt willing to pause imposition of junior doctors' contract | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is willing to pause the imposition of the junior doctors’ contract to allow further talks, peers have been told. | |
| The health minister Lord Prior’s offer, made in the House of Lords on Thursday, came with the caveat that the BMA must be willing to focus on the outstanding contractual issues, including Saturday pay. | |
| His comments came after a plea from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for a five-day truce to allow the doctors’ union and ministers to try to reach agreement on outstanding issues and so avoid further walkouts. | His comments came after a plea from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for a five-day truce to allow the doctors’ union and ministers to try to reach agreement on outstanding issues and so avoid further walkouts. |
| Related: Junior doctors' strike has become the mother of all deadlocks | |
| Answering a question in the Lords, Prior said such a pause would provide an opportunity to try to find a solution to the dispute and that Hunt would be writing to the academy on Thursday. | |
| He said Hunt would explain “we are willing to pause introduction of the new contract for five days from Monday should the junior doctors committee agree to focus discussion on the outstanding contractual issues – namely unsocial hours and Saturday pay”. | |
| The BMA had already said it was prepared to hold off calling further strikes to enable fresh talks to take place with the government. | The BMA had already said it was prepared to hold off calling further strikes to enable fresh talks to take place with the government. |
| The intervention by the academy came ahead of a BMA junior doctors committee meeting on Saturday when they are due to discuss ways of ramping up industrial action, including an indefinite walkout or mass resignation. | |
| The BMA had previously refused to return to the negotiating table unless the government lifted the threat of imposition, while the Department of Health said the doctor’s union must be prepared to discuss Saturday pay, which it described as the one remaining issue separating the two sides. | |
| The government wants to reclassify Saturday as a normal working day but the BMA says junior doctors must be entitled to a premium rate of pay for all weekend working, as under the status quo. | |
| Related: I've never felt prouder of the NHS than when my grandmother died | |
| The eight month-long dispute has seen five walkouts resulting in the cancellation of more than 35,000 operations. The latest industrial action, which took place last week, saw an all-out strike for the first time, heightening concerns about patient safety, although senior doctors were covering for their colleagues. | |
| In response to Prior, the former Labour minister Baroness Symons said it was a “rather more hopeful” government response than expected. | |
| She then asked him what the government would do if thousands of young doctors refused to sign the new contracts and opted to become locums. | |
| Prior said: “When we have the opportunity of the next five days to try and find a resolution to this dispute, it’s not helpful in a sense now to look at the ‘what ifs’ . All my experience of these situations is that the least said in public soonest mended.” |