junior doctors

A junior doctor threatening Jeremy Hunt with legal action has accused the health secretary of using independent healthcare trusts to “do his dirty work”. Dr Francesca Silman said the government was putting pressure on employers to impose new pay and working conditions on junior doctors to...

Health secretary retreats from claim he has right to impose contract – but threat may mean he has misled parliament. Jeremy Hunt is under mounting pressure over his handling of the junior doctors’ dispute after he unexpectedly abandoned his repeated threat to impose a new contract on them – a...

A strike affecting all care by junior doctors will "irreparably damage" trust and the profession's reputation, NHS England's medical director has said. Writing in the Observer, Sir Bruce Keogh said the planned walkout in England on 26 and 27 April would put significant strain on services...

Senior officials at one of the NHS' leading hospitals believe Jeremy Hunt should reverse his decision to impose a contract on England's junior doctors. In an email seen by The Independent, the medical director of Addenbrookes Hospital, along with two senior colleagues, say they share junior...

Jeremy Hunt has inflamed the dispute with junior doctors by insisting “the matter is closed” and he will impose the new contract on them, despite unprecedented protests by medics. The health secretary also insisted that history would judge him right to force new terms and conditions on England’s...

Plans have been made to deal with a "difficult" second day of the junior doctors' strike, NHS England has said. More than 5,000 operations and procedures have been postponed as a result of the 48-hour walkout which started at 08:00 BST on Wednesday. NHS England national incident director Dr...

A senior Conservative MP has attacked Jeremy Hunt’s “entirely unreasonable” tactics in pursuit of an “unachievable” seven-day NHS, claiming he misrepresented evidence to win public support in his long-running dispute with junior doctors. Revealing the depths of the Tory divide on the NHS, Dr...

The NHS’s top doctor believes that Jeremy Hunt’s row with junior doctors has “derailed” the government’s push to turn the NHS into a seven-day service. Prof Sir Bruce Keogh also signalled his unhappiness with the health secretary’s controversial decision to impose a new contract on the 45,000...

Junior doctors in England are escalating strike action next month to include a walkout of emergency care. It will be the first time doctors have refused to provide cover in areas such as A&E and intensive care - the strikes so far have hit routine care. The British Medical Association said it...

For several months now, the political fight between NHS junior doctors and the Department of Health has been filling our papers and newsfeeds. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt proposes to change the contracts of junior doctors in order to have the same junior doctor hospital cover at weekends...

Hospitals in England are braced for the third strike by junior doctors in their contract dispute with the government. The walkout gets under way at 08:00 GMT and lasts 48 hours - the longest one so far - but medics will once again provide emergency cover. It comes after ministers announced...

Junior doctors are preparing to boycott a review into falling morale among medics, the Guardian understands, casting doubt on the inquiry, which was announced on the same day the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, vowed to impose a controversial new contract. The Department of Health may now be...

Ministers should "apologise" to junior doctors and row back on imposing a new contract in England, the government's former patient safety adviser says. Prof Don Berwick, who led a review for government on safety three years ago, said there should be a three-year moratorium on the new contract...

Junior doctors are to take part in three more strikes and launch a judicial review as part of their fight against the government's decision to impose a new contract in England. The government condemned the announcement by the British Medical Association, which comes two weeks after ministers...

A junior doctor who raised concerns over staffing levels claims his career has been ruined by a lack of protection for whistleblowers. Dr Chris Day was working overnight in January 2014 when two locum doctors failed to turn up. He had to cover other wards and A&E and reported his concerns to...

Junior doctors are furious after updated "example" rotas showed them working as many as three consecutive weekends - despite politicians promising "no doctor will be ever be expected to work two weekends in a row". Medics vented their frustration following the release of rotas by NHS Employers...

The government has told hospital foundation trusts that they could lose funding for training programmes if they refuse to impose the new contract for junior doctors. The threat comes in a letter from Health Education England, the Department of Health body responsible for education and training...

Medics' bids to work abroad leaped by more than 1,000% as they learned new contracts will be forced on junior doctors against their will. There were 300 applications to leave the country on the day Jeremy Hunt announced the move - up from 24 granted per day last year and 14 per day since 2008...

A common complaint about modern politicians is that they lack the talent of the great figures of the past. That is why we must admire the genius of Jeremy Hunt. When he was Culture Secretary he managed to anger almost everybody, including people who couldn’t care less about culture, and after a...

UNDER-FIRE Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt held a secret reception for MPs in Hampshire - hours after cancelling a public event for 'safety concerns'. After pulling out of a drinks and canapés reception amid fears of a backlash from junior doctors Mr Hunt hosted a small event for party members...