People are bashing Hunt, but in my mind he's standing up for people who use services in the NHS.
Yes, true. It would be great to pay doctors as little as you can (they can't work for another employer after all!) and have them forced to work hours unpaid each day with no recourse. Great deal for the taxpayer, but don't get surprised when doctors react as any one would when faced with a 20-30% paycut would (the 11% figure only applies to some of the hours doctors usually work to bring the more antisocial proposed contract back to the level of the current one, and this 11% deal only stands for 3 years then stops...).
The underlying problem is a lack of doctors for the population. The UK has a very low number of doctors and pays a small % of GDP on the NHS, and has an ageing unhealthy population. Stretching out the same doctors onto more antisocial rotas with greater hours (same on paper but junior doctors have this habit of staying to ensure the work is done each day and sick people don't come to harm!) with no time to see friends and family, for the purpose of elective operations and clinics at the weekend is not going to solve the problems within the NHS. it will only make them worse and make things more unsafe (when there aren't enough doctors patients getting sick don't get seen on time and mistakes are made).
The irony is that junior doctors are not the difficult part of getting 7 day 'normal' healthcare to work. They already work many weekends and evenings/nights, and stretching them to provide non-emergency work at the weekends for convenience when we're told there's a 30 billion pound black hole seems a little like misplaced priorities. The Tories made this pledge before the election for 7 day full NHS with no plans for how to fund it.
Good luck getting the receptionists and porters and radiographers, HCAs and nurses and social workers to work extra hours at the weekend for free Mr Hunt!
Over the last 10 years junior doctors have lost free accommodation, recurrent pay freezes each year, introduction of tuition fees, massively hiked pension contributions and worsened amount, and now more antisocial hours, inevitably longer hours due to worse staffing levels and the removal of safeguards to prevent that, and a "pay-neutral" contract that will revert to a 20-30% pay-cut in 3 years, and a removal of pay progression based on years of experience.
So yes, Jeremy Hunt is trying to get a great deal and pay junior doctors less, but please try and understand why they're striking. Any other profession faced with this deal would do the same.
