Junior doctors ‘vote to abandon strikes’

JUNIOR doctors have voted to aban- don strikes and return to the negotiating table over Government-imposed contracts, it was claimed last night.

Doctors’ leaders agreed to cancel any more industrial action in exchange for a return to full talks with the Department of Health, a source told the Daily Mail.

But it is understood they now want written assurances that officials will fully reopen negotiations over the new contracts which pay junior doctors less at weekends.

The source said the Department of Health had made it clear there would be no possibility of renegotiation unless the doctors’ union cancelled all planned strikes.

A series of week-long walkouts were suspended in September following growing disquiet over the possible impact on patients.

The junior doctors’ committee of the British Medical Association met on Saturday to discuss whether it should reopen talks, despite the contracts having already been imposed for new doctors at 41 NHS trusts.

The source claimed there were fears an ‘extreme Left-wing element’ were calling for more frequent and lengthy walkouts.

The junior doctors’ committee chairman Dr Ellen McCourt resigned on Friday, saying the backlash from doctors over her decision to call off the strikes had made her position ‘untenable’.

Dr McCourt’s deputy Dr Pete Campbell, a supporter of Left-wing group Momentum, has taken over.

A BMA spokesman said Saturday’s meeting was ‘private’ and refused to confirm or deny the decision to abandon strikes in favour of negotiations.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘We urge the BMA to permanently call off industrial action.’