"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.”
Further information:
Over 24,500 operations cancelled so far:
- 7152 cancelled ops - December — (even though the BMA cancelled the strike)
- 4112 cancelled ops on 12 Jan
- 2884 cancelled ops 10 Feb
- 5264 cancelled ops 9-11 March
- 5156 cancelled ops 6-7 April
Legal action is expensive for all parties and in the circumstances totally unwarranted. The Secretary of State's lawyers have received a pre-action protocol letter threatening a judicial review in relation to the introduction of the junior doctors' contract from the campaign group Just Health. The BMA has launched its own judicial review to challenge the lawfulness of the health secretary's decision to impose the contract.
We hope very much that the doctors who are backing this proposed threatened action will consider our response carefully and will step back from taking any unnecessary and unreasonable legal action.
90% of this contract was agreed with the BMA, and as the BMA's own lawyers' have advised, nothing in the new contract is discriminatory (see HSJ article: http://www.hsj.co.uk/topics/workforce/revealed-bma-lawyers-warned-that-judicial-review-would-not-prevent-imposition-of-junior-doctors-contract/7002852.article )
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