Trainee groups decline offer to meet Hunt

Groups representing trainee doctors have turned down the opportunity to meet the health secretary for England, Jeremy Hunt, to discuss issues concerning their members.

Trainee representative groups said that it would be inappropriate to meet Hunt, given the ongoing dispute over juniors doctors’ contracts.

The health secretary has held discussions with royal colleges to prepare the NHS for any industrial action.1 The BMA’s ballot of junior doctors closes on 18 November, and in the event of a positive result the association said that industrial action could take place on 1 December.2

Mustafa Rashid, president of the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association, said that his group declined an invitation to meet the health secretary even though it was likely to be an opportunity that would not come up again. Speaking to BMJ Careers, Rashid said, “It was a really difficult situation, because in any other circumstance it would be fantastic to sit down with the secretary of state for health and discuss training within the NHS, especially in regards to surgical training.

“But it clearly wasn’t appropriate to be doing that at this time, with the ballot for industrial action, and the imposition of a new contract that no junior doctor that I have spoken to feels is fair for doctors or safe for patients.”

Rashid said that it would have been difficult to discuss non-contractual issues with Hunt “at a time when the junior doctor contract was the single greatest thing causing the most anxiety for doctors in training.”

Rhiannon Harries, president of the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT), was also invited to meet Hunt “for a discussion of issues which are concerning [our] members,” the association said.

In a statement ASiT said that Harries declined the invitation and that it was not appropriate for the association to meet the health secretary at the current time. “ASiT is not a trade union and, as such, it is not appropriate for the association to engage in contract negotiations or employment disputes. This remains within the remit of the British Medical Association,” the statement said.

It continued, “ASiT will, however, always be compelled to speak out, according to a professional duty of candour, when patient safety, present or future, appears to be at risk.

“ASiT feels strongly that the imposition of the proposed new contract in England poses exceptional risks to patient safety and the quality of training, recruitment, and retention of the UK surgical workforce.”

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists confirmed that Matt Tovey, chair of the Psychiatric Trainees’ Committee, was also invited to meet Hunt but said that Tovey asked for the meeting to be postponed until “after the junior doctors contract [issues] had been resolved.”

Oliver Bowes, chair of the Ophthalmologists in Training Group, said that although he had not been invited to meet Hunt he would have declined the offer. He said that the group stood united behind the BMA Junior Doctors Committee and its continued efforts to renegotiate with the government. “Any attempt to divide consensus would be against the interests of the professional and could be spun as such,” Bowes said.