Junior Doctors’ Contracts

Part of Opposition Day — [8th allotted day] – in the House of Commons at 4:21 pm on 28 October 2015.

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Photo of Heidi Alexander Heidi Alexander Shadow Secretary of State for Health 4:21, 28 October 2015

I will not give way, as I am going to make some progress.

Junior doctors are not just the first-year trainees fresh out of medical school. They are also the senior house officers and registrars with 12 or 15 years of experience. Junior doctors account for almost half of all doctors in hospitals and the vast majority already work nights and weekends. The responsibilities they carry are huge. Take the junior paediatric doctor working in accident and emergency who emailed me last week. Some of the things she does, I could never ever do. In her email, she said:

“I am in charge of teams resuscitating dying children regularly. I have had to make the decision to stop resuscitating a dying child. I have had to tell parents that their child is going to die.

I have been the only doctor trying to stick a tiny breathing tube into a baby born 16 weeks early and weighing 600g at 3 in the morning.”

How is it right that she should face the prospect of being paid less? She is not asking to be paid more. She is just asking to be paid the same and to keep the safeguards that prevent her from being stretched even further.