Junior doctors’ strike: Patients Association says it is ‘glad to see contract imposition being challenged’

Advocacy group’s backing will come as a blow to the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has positioned himself as a patients’ champion

A GP checking a patient's blood pressure (PA)

The leading body representing the interests of NHS patients has come out in support of junior doctors’ attempts to stop Jeremy Hunt imposing a new contract on the profession.

While not explicitly backing strike action the Patients Association said it was “glad to see the contract imposition being challenged”.

The statement from the 52-year-old patients’ advocacy group will come as a blow to the Health Secretary, who has positioned himself as a patients’ champion and repeatedly urged doctors not to strike because of the impact it could have on patients.

A fourth junior doctor strike commences on Wednesday at 8am, lasting 48 hours.

NHS England said that more than 5,000 operations would be cancelled as a result of the strike. The Department of Health said the strike was “irresponsible and disproportionate” and that industrial action so far had led to 25,000 cancellations.

However, Katherine Murphy, the Patients Association’s chief executive said she did not believe the imposition of a contract would not be “at all helpful in resolving this on-going dispute”.

“Junior doctors are the backbone of the NHS,” she added, “and it is vital that they are able to provide the safe and effective care that patients need. Such a highly trained and valuable part of the NHS should not be disregarded so lightly. At a time when financing the NHS is already at breaking point, we should not further risk losing more doctors whose training is funded by the public purse.

“As the voice of patients, our priority lies in protecting patient and public safety, and we know that junior doctors have never taken lightly the decision to strike. Doctors have a very real concern that the imposed terms will stretch the existing resource too thinly and will threaten the quality of patient care. Staff morale is low throughout the NHS and many doctors are feeling burnt out.”

New polling by YouGov has found that 59 per cent of the public back partial strike action by junior doctors, compared to 23 per cent opposed. Strike action commencing on Wednesday falls into this category, as emergency care will not be affected.

However, support falls to 44 per cent, with 37 per cent opposed, when people are asked if they support a full strike – as is planned for the last week of April.

The new contract will see junior doctors required to work more weekends, for less pay on Saturdays. Basic salaries will increase by 13.5 per cent to compensate for this, but pay progression will also change so that doctors no longer get automatic annual increases for time served. A Government impact assessment last week admitted this would lead to a disproportionate impact on women doctors who take time off for maternity leave.

Dr Johann Malawana, the British Medical Association’s junior doctor committee chair, said medics regretted the impact strike action would have on patients.

“But it is because we believe this contract would be bad for the delivery of patient care in the long term that we are taking this action,” he said. “By imposing a contract that junior doctors have no confidence in and refusing to re-enter talks with the BMA, the government has left us with no choice.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “This strike is irresponsible and disproportionate, and with almost 25,000 operations cancelled so far, it is patients who are suffering. If the BMA had agreed to negotiate on Saturday pay, as they promised to do through ACAS in November, we'd have a negotiated agreement by now. We ask doctors to look at the detail of the contract and call on the BMA to cancel their plans to escalate strike action even further.”