Larry Sanders calls on NHS trusts to refuse to impose junior doctor contract

28 September 2016

* Sanders: ‘The Health Secretary has escaped an embarrassing High Court defeat by employing some last minute legal acrobatics’

NHS trusts must exert their legal powers to refuse to impose Jeremy Hunt’s new junior doctor contract, the Green Party has said.

Larry Sanders, the party’s health spokesperson and candidate in the Witney by-election [1] , appealed to trusts after Hunt won a High Court fight with junior doctors today (Wednesday, September 28) [2].

The court ruled in favour of Hunt, who said a complaint from doctors that he had compelled NHS employers to adopt the new contract was without substance.

Sanders, brother of U.S. senator Bernie Sanders, said:

"The Health Secretary has escaped an embarrassing High Court defeat by employing some last minute legal acrobatics - and some very expensive lawyers paid for by the taxpayer. However, to secure a courtroom victory, Jeremy Hunt's team were forced to concede that the Secretary of State has no power to impose a contract on junior doctors, never intended to, never meant to suggest he was going to, and all the while claiming no-one ever thought he was going to. The doctors are right to celebrate this element of victory in today's ruling.

"Having seen and heard Hunt's repeated refusal to provide such clarity when called upon by junior doctors prior to the court case, and witnessing his many speeches to the Commons' hinting at imposition, it seems the ruling has exposed another case to which Hunt must answer: Did the Health Secretary deliberately and repeatedly mislead Parliament over the extent of his powers, and intention, to impose a new junior doctors contract?

"The answer to this question will bring little comfort to junior doctors about to be subject to the new contract. A new contract that is patently unsafe owing, in no small part, to the huge rota gaps it will exacerbate in hospitals across England. I am calling on NHS trusts to exert the legal powers they have, as clarified by the High Court today, to refuse to impose the contract as it currently stands."

Sanders will be joining junior doctors at a demonstration on Thursday, September 29 in Bonn Square, Oxford at 6pm.

ENDS.

For more information contact press@greenparty.org.uk / 0203 691 9401

Notes:

  1. Larry Sanders, brother of U.S. senator Bernie Sanders, was chosen as the Green Party candidate for the Witney by-election on Thursday, October 20. He will stand for David Cameron’s former seat on the promise to fight NHS privatisation. For more information visit:https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/09/23/green-party-selects-larry-sanders-as-witney-by-election-candidate/
  2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37481677

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