by Peter Lazenby
HOSPITAL doctors will continue to resist new contracts due to be introduced next week, despite having called off a series of five-day strikes between now and Christmas, the BMA said yesterday.
The junior doctors have already staged six strikes over government plans to extend weekend working with no extra funding or staffing.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says the contracts will be brought in next Wednesday, though it now appears that it won’t be forced on them.
The strikes were called off over concerns for patient safety, with the doctors putting patients’ welfare before their own problems with the contracts.
But the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association (BMA), said it was considering “other options” to resist the contracts, short of strike action.
BMA junior doctors’ committee chair Dr Ellen McCourt emphasised: “The BMA has not accepted the contract. We remain in dispute around the contract.
“We are looking at a variety of other options — we have not yet released those to our members — but what we need to do is find ways of challenging this at a more local level and using a variety of different methods. We’re still looking into them.”
She said doctors had to make up their own minds whether to sign the contract next week.
“It is up to every individual trainee whether they choose to go to work on October 5.”
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