Decision to impose new doctors' contracts could impact on nurses

Nurse unions fear the decision to force junior doctors into accepting new contracts will put further strain on their relationship with the government. They also worry that their members could experience a similar fate.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s announcement yesterday (February 11) that the new contract would be imposed, came after three years of talks with the British Medical Association ended without agreement on changes to unsocial hours payments and seven day care.

The RCN's head of employment relations Josie Irwin said the imposition set ‘a worrying precedent’ which ‘reflects poorly on the government’s attitude towards industrial relations and staff morale in the NHS'.

She backed the decision of nurses to support doctors and added: ‘Our members are increasingly anxious that there will now be moves to take their unsocial hours payments away as well.’

Unison deputy head of health Sara Gorton told the Nursing Standard its members had ‘feared for some time’ that once Mr Hunt had sorted the doctors’ contract he would ‘turn his attention to nurses and the wider health profession'.

Ms Gorton called for nurses to join a union if they weren't a member already. ‘We will defend unsocial hours for our members and oppose these changes and similar ones in future,’ she said.

Mr Hunt’s decision came on the same day as a 200,000 signature petition was handed in to Downing Street, calling on the government to rethink its Trade Union Bill, which is designed to limit strike action.

Calling the industrial relations climate ‘fractured’, Ms Gorton added: ‘This is a serious blow for our relationship with the government who are eroding collective bargaining.’

Looking to the immediate future, she said Unison would ‘talk to other unions’ to decide on action, and called on all NHS staff ‘to work together to fight for their jobs and pay'.

Unite said it was looking into the legal consequences of the decision, with its national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe calling it ‘an attack on all NHS workers'.

He said: ‘More widely, this will damage democratic engagement if this pattern of intimidatory behaviour is allowed to continue.’

Royal College of Midwives director for employment relations Jon Skewes said imposing contracts was ‘further proof that the government is failing to listen to the concerns of NHS front line staff'.

Mr Hunt defended his decision by saying ‘no government could responsibly ignore the evidence that hospital mortality rates are higher at the weekend, or the overwhelming consensus that the standard of weekend services is too low’.

He said doctors working more than one in four Saturdays will receive a pay premium of 30% ‘that is higher on average than that available to nurses, midwives, paramedics and most other clinical staff’.