A senior Brighton doctor said that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is boosting the number of medics – in Australia.
Rob Galloway, an accident and emergency (A&E) consultant at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, said that Mr Hunt’s proposed new contract for junior doctors was driving them abroad.
In an article for the Daily Mail in his capacity as an adviser to the NHS Support Federation, Dr Galloway said: “Jeremy Hunt has become the single best recruitment consultant for Australia’s health system ever.”
Two family doctors from Portslade have moved to Australia – as have others from the Royal Sussex.
And some have gone to Qatar. The Arab state is scheduled to hold another recruiting round shortly, with strong expectations of being able to lure more dissatisfied doctors away from the NHS.
While Mr Hunt has softened his stance on the new junior doctor contract, Dr Galloway remains unconvinced. He has accepted an invitation to speak at a protest rally in London on Saturday (17 October) when about 15,000 people are expected to show their concern.
Dr Galloway wrote in the Mail: “The NHS is already on a knife edge. But that situation has just become a lot more precarious because of what might be about to happen to our junior doctors.
“Junior doctors are the backbone of hospitals both at night and weekends, especially in A&E.
“A year ago the government was close to agreeing a deal with the junior doctors on a new contract, which among other things, incentivised them to go into the specialities that have been the hardest to find doctors for – obstetrics, paediatrics and A&E.
“In these areas the vast majority of the work is emergency treatment and the work itself is particularly arduous, with much of the working time at night and weekends.
“But rather than incentivise junior doctors, Jeremy Hunt seems to want to put them off working in the NHS completely.
“No one wants to be treated by exhausted doctors who are much more likely to make mistakes and yet the new contract threatens to remove current safeguards on how many hours junior doctors can work.
“The proposed changes also mean that junior doctors won’t be paid out-of-hours supplement rates for many of the anti-social hours they work.
“These doctors are not overpaid now. They start on around £23,000 basic pay, and as well as student debts, they have exam fees, registration and insurance which they have to pay for themselves – these alone can cost up to £2,500 a year.
“The out-of-hours supplement rates have been an important way for them to boost their salaries to a rate commensurate with their training.
“And let’s remember that the ‘junior’ doctor is anyone up to the rank of consultant or GP. They are not all just straight out of medical school and can have up to ten years’ experience after they qualified.
“This is not about getting junior doctors to do more out-of-hours work – they already provide a 24-hour, seven-day service – but the new contract threatens to cut their salary for doing these vital shifts.”
Jeremy hunt is the Volkswagen of politicans. On the surface He looks and sounds good. But nobody trusts his emissions
— Rob Galloway (@DrRobgalloway) October 9, 2015
Dr Galloway quoted one of his former members of staff – the ex-Health Minister and Conservative MP Dan Poulter.
Dr Poulter, who used to work at the Royal Sussex, said: “The junior doctor contract that has emerged over the summer – the contract that the Department of Health now wants to impose – is very different from the one being discussed this time last year.
“Then there was no talk of 90-hour weeks, no talk of large numbers of junior doctors having their pay cut.
“There was instead a recognition by the Department of Health that now appears to have been lost: that better pay and work-life balance incentives were needed to ensure doctors were attracted to A&E and other gruelling specialties.”
Dr Galloway, a sub dean at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, said: “The Mail has reported how thousands are now looking to work outside of the UK – Jeremy Hunt has become the single best recruitment consultant for Australia’s health system ever.
“One of those junior doctors who’ve left the NHS is the daughter of Sarah Wollaston, the Tory MP and chair of the Health Select Committee.”
Dr Wollaston, a GP (general practitioner), said: “This dispute is about far more than pay. After all, young people rarely choose a career in medicine because they are motivated by money.
“But the attempt to re-designate Saturdays up to 10pm as standard time, among many other changes that will result in some juniors facing significant cuts to their pay, has been the last straw.”
Dr Galloway, a father of three who lives in Hove, wrote: “With a loss of the skills of these doctors, the future viability of the NHS is at risk.
“We’re already struggling to recruit enough doctors in A&E and as an A&E consultant I’m scared of what may happen come August 2016 when our current cohort of junior doctors finishes their training posts and we can’t replace them.
“There are some amazing junior doctors who work with me and I want them to apply for training schemes that put them on the path to become A&E consultants, in this country, while providing the care our patients need. But I fear they won’t.
“Late last week Jeremy Hunt said the new contract won’t ‘impose’ longer working hours and suggested that junior doctors had been ‘misled’ about the effects on pay.
“But I, for one, remain unconvinced, and on this Saturday – 17 October – I will be joining the 15,000 junior doctors marching in London in protest against the proposed changes and the wider implications for the NHS’s future.
“I hope that members of the public will join us: we need to convince the government to change the way it’s treating its staff.
“Because if it doesn’t, then the NHS the British public so passionately cares about may not be able to care for them.”
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