Health secretary Jeremy Hunt will try to ward off strike action from junior doctors at one of the NHS’s busiest times of the year, by offering them an 11 per cent pay rise.
Furious at his threat to impose a new contract on them, the junior doctors committee of the British Medical Association (BMA) is preparing to ballot its members about potential walkouts.
Were England’s 45,000 trainee doctors to strike, it would probably affect a wide range of NHS services and potentially lead to the cancellation of planned operations.
But in a bid to avert industrial action, Mr Hunt is expected to offer them 10 per cent more than the maximum one per cent annual rises that other public sector workers have been told to expect in the next few years.
It is thought Mr Hunt will also give new powers to the Care Quality Commission, the NHS regulator, to ensure that junior doctors are not overworked.
Pointing out that junior doctor contracts were introduced in the 1990s, the Government has described the current arrangements as “outdated” and “unfair”.
Ministers drew up plans to change the contract in 2012 but the talks broke down last year with doctors protesting against proposals that would see evenings and weekends counted as “regular working hours.”
With no sign of the stalemate ending, the Government indicated that it would impose the new contract in England next year.
The BMA has argued that the deal could mean pay cuts of up to 30 per cent, with “normal hours” reclassified as being from 7am to 10pm, Monday to Saturday.
Extra payments for unsociable working will be earned only outside of these times, rather than the current arrangements of 7am to 7pm Monday to Friday.
Mr Hunt has claimed that the BMA was “misleading” it members of over the planned reforms and said he could understand how thousands of medics had been convinced to oppose the contract.
Nonetheless, thousands of doctors marched through London last month to protest against the planned contract changes.
Without major concessions, it is thought that a large percentage of those balloted on Thursday would vote for industrial action or a full strike.
Were the junior doctors to back a withdrawal of labour then BMA plans would see trainees providing only emergency care.
The union has also warned that it would hold “a withdrawal of all junior doctors’ labour unless Mr Hunt makes further concessions.
Mr Hunt will also promise the average working week of 48 hours will remain the same – and say the top limit would be brought down from 91 hours to 72.
