'Potential Deal' To Call Off Doctor Strikes

Junior doctors are considering a potential deal with the Government that would suspend tomorrow's strike.

Speaking in Parliament, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that a "time-limited" agreement was reached this afternoon for further talks.

This means the British Medical Association would suspend strike action if the Government agrees not to impose the new contracts on doctors.

The deal is currently with the BMA junior doctors' executive committee who will decide later whether to support it. At this stage strikes planned across England are still due to go ahead from 8am on Tuesday.

Mr Hunt said: "It is regrettable that this strike was called even before the BMA has seen the Government's offer and the whole House will be hoping today that the strike is called off so that talks can resume."

Sky News Health Correspondent Thomas Moore said: "It's hard to see how the BMA can go ahead with the strikes now that there's a potential deal on the table."

Doctors have planned three days of industrial action, providing emergency care only on Tuesday and full walk-outs from 8am until 5pm on 8 December and 16 December.

Moore added: "The problem is that even if it's now called off at the last minute...patients will still have had their operations cancelled, their outpatients appointments cancelled - so there will still be some disruption."

Mr Hunt told Parliament that 20,000 patients may have operations cancelled over the three days of action, including around 1,500 cataracts, 900 skin lesion removals, 630 hip and knee operations, 400 spine operations, 250 gall bladder removals and almost 300 tonsil and grommets operations.

Mr Hunt previously offered an 11% rise in basic pay, offset by plans to cut the number of hours on a weekend that junior doctors can claim extra pay for "unsocial" hours.

The Government had 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.