Junior doctors lose High Court challenge over seven-day contract
Junior doctors have lost their High Court case against their new staffing contract one week before it is to be imposed on them. Justice for Health argued the contract was “unsafe and unsustainable” – a statement the Department of Health disputed.
The doctors’ group said Mr Hunt had exceeded his powers by enforcing the new contract. They claimed the Health Secretary had acted irrationally and had not fulfilled his obligations to act with transparency,
certainty and clarity. But Mr Justice Green rejected the claims. Although Mr Hunt had approved the contract, he had not compelled employers to enforce it, he ruled.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health said: “We welcome this clear decision by the judge that the secretary of state acted entirely lawfully. We must now move on from this dispute to the crucial job of making sure patients get the same high standards of urgent and emergency care every day of the week, which involves more than the junior doctors’ contract. We urge the BMA to remove all threat of further industrial action so we can work constructively with junior doctors to address their wider concerns and better recognise their vital importance to the NHS.”
Six separate strikes have been conducted by junior doctors over the contract so far – but a series of five-day strikes running up to Christmas have been called off because of fears over patient safety.
Dr Ben White, a medical registrar and one of the five founding members of Justice for Health, said: “The key points of the judgment are: Mr Hunt is not imposing a contract, he never was, he never meant to suggest he was and he claims no one ever thought he was. I think what has happened is a re-writing of British history. What we have seen him do is political game-playing over NHS patients, that is how junior doctors feel as NHS staff.”
The legal challenge had been crowdfunded from about 10,000 donors, who raised £300,000 for the cause. The Department of Health said they would seek to recoup the costs the taxpayer had paid as a result of the case.
In response to the ruling, Lib Dem Health Secretary Norman Lamb said: “The Government may have won the battle in court today, but it is far from winning the war. Ultimately, Jeremy Hunt is still making the mistake of trying to squeeze more and more out of our cash-strapped NHS, without any plan to fund these changes and ensure vital staff do not leave. I have called on him many times to launch a cross-party commission to review NHS and care funding, so we can ensure a fair deal to both patients and staff in the years to come.”