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Junior Doctors Suspend Strikes To Allow Talks

Junior Doctors Suspend Strikes To Allow Talks

Strike action by thousands of junior doctors has been suspended, the British Medical Association has said.

Any industrial action by medics will now not go ahead before 13 January as long as fresh negotiations with the Department of Health are able to proceed.

The Government has agreed to suspend its threat to enforce controversial new contracts as the talks take place.

Strikes were set to go ahead across England from 8am on Tuesday, as part of three days of industrial action.

Junior medics said they would provide emergency care only on Tuesday, followed by full walk-outs from 8am to 5pm on 8 December and 16 December.

Thousands of people were told they would have their operations cancelled over the three days. It is not yet clear how many of these operations can now go ahead.

After the tentative agreement was reached between the BMA, the Government and NHS Employers - acting on behalf of junior doctors' employers - they stated a need to "improve access to seven-day services" in the NHS.

"The parties recognise that junior doctors currently make a significant contribution across seven days, that urgent and emergency care is the priority for such services and that any new contract would support these aims," a memorandum of understanding released by all the parties said.

Dr Johann Malawana, chairman of the BMA Junior Doctors' Committee, said: "Ultimately, industrial action was not the aim of this.

"What we wanted to achieve was a fair safe contract.

"No doctor in this country ever wants to take industrial action and what we’ve achieved today is to get those assurances that we will enter meaningful negotiations."

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said the news was "fantastic" and that it would mean "we can finally start to build the seven-day NHS".

He added: "The tragedy is that it took so long for the BMA to want to actually sit around the table and discuss it.

"But when they did, as doctors, I think they did realise that what we were trying to do was the best thing for patients and for doctors.

"I hope now we can make progress."

When asked what would happen to those thousands of patients who have already had their operations cancelled for tomorrow, he replied: "We'll obviously try and get everyone who has had their operation cancelled rescheduled as quick as possible.

"Doctors work extremely hard in hospitals around this time of year and I know they'll do everything they can to try and make up for the delay."

Mr Hunt had told MPs that NHS England had estimated that up to 20,000 patients may have had operations cancelled across the planned three days of industrial action.

The Government has been planning to impose a new contract on doctors - from junior to consultant level - from next summer, including reclassifying "normal" working weeks to include Saturdays.

It would also mean the working day would be considered to last up to 10pm every day, except Sunday.

Medics say this would effectively be a pay cut of up to 30% because evenings and Saturdays are usually paid at a higher rate.