Hunt agrees to pause imposition of junior doctors' contract

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has agreed to pause the imposition of the new junior doctors contract, following calls from the the Academy of Royal Colleges.

The Academy urged the Health Secretary to pause the imposition of the contract and the British Medical Association (BMA) to suspend further strike action for five days, calling on both sides to drop all preconditions and begin fresh talks to try and come to an understanding.

Professor Dame Sue Bailey, chair of the Academy of Medical Colleges, said that both Hunt and Johann Malawana, the chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctors’ Committee, should ‘take a deep breath, dial down the rhetoric and get back to the table for talks’.

Following the plea from the Academy, the BMA agreed to suspend further strike action and return to talks, but only if the threat of imposition was removed.

Hunt has now responded in a letter to Bailey, agreeing to pause the imposition of the contract for five days from Monday 9 May, if the junior doctors agree to return to talks.

He stressed that he expected the discussions to focus on outstanding contractual issues and not revisit the ’90 per cent of issues that were agreed, including the cost neutrality of the contract’.

The letter also expressed concerns that the BMA’s Junior Doctors’ Committee had ‘previously backed away from their own written agreement’ and states that talks should only proceed if the Department of Health has written agreement from the Committee that they will ‘agree to negotiate substantively and in good faith’ and that they would recommend any negotiated agreement to their members.