Junior doctors have called off the first of their planned series of five-day strikes after growing alarm from senior doctors and NHS leaders that the action could endanger patients.
In a statement on Monday afternoon, Dr Ellen McCourt, the chair of the British Medical association’s junior doctors committee, said that the doctors’ union was “suspending the industrial action planned for the week of 12 September”.
McCourt told Jeremy hunt, the health secretary, that he now had a month to stop the imposition of the new contract that has sparked such anger among trainee medics in England over the last year. It is due to start being implemented from early October.
However, the BMA is still planning to stage three other five-day- walkouts, in October, November and December, if Hunt does not respond positively.
However, it is unclear what will happen next after the Department of Health’s initial reaction to the call-off did not indicate if Hunt would do what the BMA are urging him to do and suspend the planned imposition of the contract.
Full story in The Guardian 5 September 2016