Junior doctors ‘take over Question Time’

JUNIOR doctors hijacked the BBC’s Question Time programme as they stepped up their political campaign against the Government’s plans for a seven-day NHS.

So many striking doctors packed the audience for the flagship current affairs show on Thursday night that the exasperated host David Dimbleby at one point appealed for ‘patients rather than doctors’ to ask questions. The British Medical Association denied it had organised infiltration of the audience for the show, broadcast from London.

Audience members included psychiatrist Lauren Gavaghan, a public face of the strike, who told an audience member he was wrong to believe that hospital death rates were worse at the weekend.

She attacked Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, saying he had ‘misled the entire country’. She was eventually cut off by Mr Dimbleby, who told her: ‘Don’t wag your finger at me.’

The BBC said: ‘Question Time audiences are always selected in accordance with our guidelines on fairness and balance, and this week was no different.

‘It would be factually wrong to suggest this week was dominated by junior doctors – there was only a handful in the whole audience.’