argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): It applies to all doctors working within the legal limit. If they opted out of the working time directive, it would apply up to 56 hours. For people who are working more than the legal limits, even after opting out, the right answer is to stop them working those extra hours because it is not safe for patients. But yes, that is the commitment to people even if they have opted out.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to make some progress, if I may As well as reducing the maximum hours a doctor can be asked to work from 91 to 72 in any week—a significant reduction—and banning hospitals from requiring doctors to work five nights in a row or six long days in a row, as hospitals can currently make them do, we propose to ban the routine use of fixed leave arrangements that mean that some doctors have to give up to three months’ notice before taking leave, meaning that they miss out on vital family or personal occasions We did not, and do not, seek to impose a new contract; rather, we invited the BMA to negotiate a new contract so that we could end up with a solution that was right for doctors and right for patients. However, because we had recently won an election in which a seven-day NHS was a manifesto commitment, we said that having tried to negotiate this unsuccessfully for two and a half years, we would ask trusts to introduce new contracts if we were unable to succeed in negotiations.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): We do have regular dialogue. I suggest that the reason doctors in Northern Ireland might be angry is that they have been listening to misinformation about what the Government in England are proposing, which has, very disappointingly, made doctors all over the UK very angry. I hope that the assurances I am giving, which I gave to the BMA last month and the month before, face to face and in letters, will encourage the hon. Lady to report to the doctors she mentions that the right thing for the BMA to do is to come and talk to the Government. Regrettably, the BMA’s junior doctors committee has refused to negotiate since last June. Instead, it put up a pay calculator on its website that scared many doctors by falsely suggesting that their pay could be cut by between 30% and 50%. It has now taken that pay calculator down, but the damage to morale as a result of it continues.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make some progress. Some people say that this is a battle between the interests of patients and those of doctors, but that is profoundly wrong. Doctors who are happy and supported in their jobs provide better care to patients, and the link between a motivated workforce and high-quality care is proven in many studies, as well as in hospitals such as that in Northumbria, where staff have become the greatest advocates for seven-day services since their introduction. Our proposed new system is intended to provide better support to doctors who work weekends, and make seven-day diagnostics more widely available across the NHS.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the clarity with which my right hon. Friend has addressed the principal concerns of junior doctors, does he expect the BMA’s junior doctors Committee to change its stance, come to the Department and restart negotiations, or will it continue to stall?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): If the BMA is serious about wanting to do the right thing for doctors and patients, there is no reason for it not to negotiate with the Government to get the right solution. This is a test of how serious it is—my hon. Friend’s point is well made.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): That is exactly what I would like to happen, but it can happen only if members of the BMA walk through my office door—it is open—and sit down and start negotiating, which they have refused to do since last June. Just as it is wrong to pit doctors against patients, it is also wrong for the Labour party to pit the Government against doctors. In the previous Parliament, Labour wanted to cut the NHS budget, but we protected it. In May’s election we promised £5.5 billion more for the NHS than Labour did, and in the last Parliament a Conservative-led Government delivered 9,000 more doctors to the NHS, 1 million more operations a year, and 600,000 more people were referred for urgent suspected cancer every year Because we are not stopping at that, and because we are passionate that the NHS should offer the highest standards of care available anywhere in the world, the Government have also been honest about the problems facing the NHS. Two hundred avoidable deaths every week is too many—it is the equivalent of a plane crash every week. Nor is it acceptable that twice a week we operate on the wrong part of someone’s body, or allow other "never events" to happen. In many of those areas the NHS is performing at or better than international norms, but that does not make such things any more acceptable. We want the NHS to be the first healthcare system in the world to adopt standards of safety that are considered normal in the airline, nuclear or oil industries.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Atta-Ur-Rehman Chishti (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State said that we are open to problems being highlighted. May I thank him for what he did by putting hospitals into special measures? Medway Maritime hospital had the seventh highest mortality rate in 2005, yet nothing was done. Support is now being given to that hospital to turn it around. We are highlighting problems, but we are also introducing measures to fix those problems.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his consistent support for his local hospital. It has had many troubles, but it is beginning to show signs of turning a corner. If we want to turn things around, we must first be honest about the problem I welcome the shadow Health Secretary to her place. Her predecessor tried to minimise the care problems that took place under a previous Labour Government, and he described our attempts to put them right as trying to "run down the NHS". I hope that she does not do the same. Labour used to be the party that stood up for ordinary men and women; it cared enough about them to set up the NHS, so that no one had to worry about getting good medical care, whatever their circumstances. People need to know that they can depend on our NHS seven days a week. Instead of making mischief about a flawed doctors contract that was introduced by a Labour Government in 2000, the hon. Lady should stand with us as we sort out this problem. Be the party not of the unions but of the patients who depend on high quality care, day in, day out. Professor Bruce Keogh talked about the moral and professional case for concerted action. Surely in that context, she might reconsider this rather ill-judged attempt to make party political capital out of a very real problem Everyone who cares about the NHS should want the same thing. The hon. Lady should tell the BMA to get around the negotiating table, something she conspicuously failed to do. In doing so she would stand alongside the many independent voices calling on the BMA to return to the table and discuss a solution with the Government—the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians, NHS providers and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. If she does not do that, the British people will draw their own conclusion about which party is backing the NHS with the resources it needs, which party is supporting hospitals to become safer at the weekends, and which party is standing four-square behind doctors and nurses in their ambition to deliver high quality standards of care for patients. There is only one party that can be trusted, one true party of the NHS, and that is the Conservative party.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): For the sake of clarity, the 200 avoidable deaths are not about the weekend effect specifically, but come from the Hogan and Black analysis, which found that 3.6% of hospital deaths in England had at least a 50% greater chance of having been avoidable, which is separate from the weekend effect—the higher mortality rate among people admitted at weekends. None the less, where there are avoidable deaths—where death rates look higher than they should be—we have an obligation to do something.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Atta-Ur-Rehman Chishti (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Lady. She talks about her experience of working long hours. Does she think that what the Secretary of State has just said about introducing new limits on junior doctors’ working hours is the right way forward?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that one thing about which junior doctors want certainty is no longer having whole weeks of nights or having to work beyond 72 hours. The Government need to be clear about how they will achieve that.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Sarah James (Wollaston) (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There is much to be welcomed in the new contract, but we need honesty about some of this. I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has given an assurance today that no junior doctor will be worse off, but I hope that when he sums up the debate, he will tell us what will happen to a junior doctor working 70 hours a week, perhaps in a specialty such as accident and emergency or anaesthetics. If the pay envelope is the same and some junior doctors will be better off, the maths indicates that some will be worse off and we need to clarify which ones. We need much more clarity, not just about whether an individual will be no worse off as a result of changing from one job to the next over the transition period, but about what will happen to the pay for that post over the coming years While I welcome many of the elements of the junior contract, I feel that, because the debate has become rather toxic, we should take the opportunity to begin again to examine all the issues in the round, and ask junior doctors themselves to work with the Secretary of State in establishing how we can achieve our common aims on behalf of patients. We should also take the opportunity once more to welcome junior doctors and value everything that they do.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Charlotte Leslie (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In addition, I am just not sure it should be possible for supervisors with more responsibility to be paid less than those they are supervising. I am slightly confused about the BMA stance on this. When I spoke to it about the European working time directive, it assured me that it was not just time spent in training that mattered, but the quality of that training. Now in its submission it seems to have completely reversed that position and says that it is just time spent on the job that matters. That confuses me As the Government accept, there is a need for discussion on how doctors moving between different specialities can have their pay protected, but that is again something on which we must absolutely enter into discussion with junior doctors. I plead with the BMA to come to the table. The consultants committee in the BMA has done that and I applaud it for doing so. A part of the drive to get more consultants in at weekends is to improve the quality of junior doctor training which has suffered under the European working time directive I also note that one paragraph in the BMA’s submission states: "Much of the subsequent detail that has been discussed in the news was never fully outlined as part of the previous negotiation process." That demonstrates that the Government are still completely open to talking about many things, yet the BMA almost seems to lament that fact. In the light of this, I simply do not understand why the BMA will not return to the table. I celebrated the BMA’s "No More Games" campaign. We do need to de-politicise the NHS, but I am really concerned that the junior doctors committee is bringing that laudable aim by the BMA, and the work on that which the BMA does, into disrepute.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Michael Whitney Freer (Conservative, Centre-right): Finchley and Golders Green is served by Barnet general hospital and the Royal Free hospital, which is just across the border in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). In particular, the Royal Free is the largest hospital serving my constituency, and it is one of the largest and safest acute hospitals in London. It has the high security infectious diseases unit, which has recently been in the news for treating Ebola, and it is a major centre for research into immunology and transplants. Not surprisingly, it is a major teaching hospital Many junior doctors who live in my constituency have contacted me and despite my best efforts, using the information provided by NHS employers and the Department of Health’s online pay model, they continue to be confused and believe that their pay will be cut. I have no doubt that the selective information from the BMA has not helped. I welcome the reforms in principle and the commitment to introduce a new absolute limit on the number of extra hours that junior doctors can work. Bringing an end to the week of nights and capping the extra hours are welcome, but most junior doctors in my constituency are simply not aware that that is what we propose. In fact, most of the junior doctors that I have seen believe that the reforms will increase their working week, leading to more fatigue and therefore jeopardising, not improving, patient safety. They believe that this will hamper the Secretary of State’s quite-right drive to improve weekend mortality rates. I say to my colleagues in the Department of Health that something is going wrong in the communication of this welcome reform Let me turn now to a couple of issues that have been raised by junior doctors and that echo some of the concerns mentioned by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). On retention, the Royal Free is a major centre for research and yet Dr Renee Hoenkampf, who wrote to me, is concerned that those doctors who seek to go into research and to step away from the frontline will be penalised by being held back on their progression pay. Those doctors who choose to have a career break to raise a family will also be penalised. Both those concerns will impact on women more than on men.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Michael Whitney Freer (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right that just getting pay progression for time served is not the right thing to do, and most organisations have scrapped it. However, we must avoid accidental penalties acting as a disincentive for women joining the workforce. We should not encourage this idea that women, or any person, should be penalised for taking career breaks or for stepping away from the frontline by taking part in valuable research. I gently ask the Minister to look again at that matter When I met Dr Joseph Machta, a junior doctor in paediatrics, he said that, after consulting the Department of Health’s pay model, his pay would reduce by 15%. Like many junior doctors living in my patch—it is not a cheap part of London—he was concerned that he would no longer be able to pay his mortgage. Will the Minister look into that matter? I suspect that London’s junior doctors rely more than most on premium payments. While average pay across the UK may be neutral under the compensatory increase in basic pay, that may not be true in London. I would be interested to hear whether the Department of Health has done an impact assessment on London’s junior doctors and the amount of premium pay that takes up the wage bill in London hospitals. If many junior doctors in London are over reliant on premium payments to pay their bills—that may be a wrong thing to do because they are working too many hours, but that is a different issue—it is a matter that needs to be considered It is not unusual to want to have contract terms changed to meet current needs. On that basis, I support the reforms, but I ask the Minister to look into those two issues that I specifically raised.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that in the rural communities in south Wiltshire that we both represent, there does need to be a certain minimum proximity in order for patients to be able to access their hospital with confidence?
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with that, which is where networks come into our national health service, and making sure that we have specialist centres that can deliver the right outcomes for people, and that there are protocols to ensure that ambulance services take people to the right place at the right time, so that they can receive the treatment they need. What we cannot do is continue with the current situation, in which our constituents can expect lower life expectancy and health in later life than, say, French or German patients. That is not sustainable and it is not right. It means looking again at how we configure our national health service. It may mean some difficult decisions in some parts of our NHS, but that should not be a barrier to making sure that we do it right What I would say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench is that this is not really about junior doctors; this is about consultant grades, who deliver the therapeutics and diagnostics in relation to upper GI bleeds, heart attacks and strokes. They are now, in our new NHS of the 21st century, at the coalface of delivery in a way that they previously were not. So, if I may say so, I would like a greater focus on consultant grades, perhaps at the expense of some of our junior doctors who are the principal subject of our debate today.
Junior Doctors’ Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-10-28
Topic: Health
Paul Christopher Maynard (Conservative, Centre-right): Three minutes is never enough, but here I go. First, we have heard a lot about seven-day working and a seven-day NHS. That does not occur only within the hospital. I would like to restate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) in the Westminster Hall debate on the e-petition that, most important of all, we need to look at how we can reduce in the first place unplanned admissions to hospital from the community. Secondly, I echo what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said. We here have a responsibility not to exploit junior doctors and their willingness, sense of vocation and commitment to the NHS It is worth looking at some of the deficiencies of the 2003 contract. As I understand it, a doctor working 47 hours can be paid the same as one working 41 hours. That cannot be right. A doctor working daytime can be paid exactly the same as a doctor working only nights and late shifts. A doctor progressing to a post of greater responsibility might not get any extra pay for that. There are multiple flaws in the existing contract that need to be addressed as part of the growing trajectory towards improving terms and conditions each time we reassess the contract I recognise that there is a desire on all sides to get back round the table, and I strongly urge all sides to do that. I hope it can be done, but there is no contract that I can see lurking in the Minister’s bottom drawer waiting to be unveiled. In the report from the Doctors and Dentists Review Body three scenarios were set out. There are a further six, I understand, in circulation and in preparation by the NHS Employers organisation. There is so much to discuss, so many alternative scenarios, that it would be a dereliction of duty for all sides not to get back round the table We should note that in what has been proposed, by reducing the maximum number of hours to 72, there would be no more of the four nights in a row that some junior doctors have had to work, and no more seven consecutive nights on particular rota shifts. There is much that is positive in the contract, yet I recognise why there are concerns. I urge Dr Malawana who wrote to the Secretary of State to look again at what my right hon. Friend is seeking to achieve. There is clearly a willingness to discuss how to redefine daytime work, how to judge what we pay for Saturdays, how we change flexible pay premiums. There is so much that can still be discussed that we are missing an historic opportunity here to set in stone for another decade a much better contract and a much better set of criteria for fairer working practices for our very, very hardworking junior doctors.