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Junior doctors call for ballot on industrial action

Linda Beecham BMJ

Representatives of the United Kingdom’s 35 000 junior hospital doctors have rejected the latest pay proposals from the health departments and overwhelmingly called for a ballot of junior doctors members or the BMA unless the government improves its offer.

In September the Junior Doctors Committee (JDC) sent its leaders back to the negotiating table to push for a better deal (2 October 1999, p 869). The negotiators have spent many hours with officials, but after a six hour meeting on 11 December the committee decided that the current offer was not good enough. It wants its chairman, Mr Andrew Hobart, to seek an urgent meeting with the secretary of state for health to brief him on the problems of junior doctors.

The health departments have proposed four bands to replace the current system of additional duty hours (9 October 1999, p 1010), and last month the junior doctors’ committee agreed that a banded contract was the best way to recognise the antisocial and intensive nature of junior doctors’ work.

The committee hopes that negotiations will continue on trying to improve the banding criteria and on the other differences which remain between what officials have offered and the negotiators have called for. Agreement has not yet been reached on the contractual obligations to monitor the new deal arrangements, under which no juniors are supposed to actually work more than 56 hours a week; on the dates on which compliance with the new deal must be incorporated into contracts; on shifts; or on flexible trainees. If satisfactory progress is made speedily a ballot may not be necessary.

A ballot should be held only to further a trade dispute. In order to take this action, negotiations between the parties should be exhausted. If the correct procedures are not followed, a trust or the Department of Health may try to halt the process by an injunction.

The chairman of the negotiators, Mr Nizam Mamode, said, "Junior doctors deserve to be treated fairly for the work they do. It is no longer acceptable for them to work excessively long hours for derisory rates of pay. If the Department of Health does not deliver we will ballot our members on industrial action."