Andrea Jenkyns – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrea Jenkyns on 2016-09-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times the Junior Doctors’ Committee of the British Medical Association has (a) left negotiations already in progress and (b) refused written requests to return to negotiations on the proposed junior doctors’ contract since any negotiations on that proposed contract began.

Mr Philip Dunne

The British Medical Association (BMA) Junior Doctors Committee walked away from negotiations twice. The first time was after almost a year of negotiations on 16 October 2014. The second time was on 4 January 2016 during negotiations following an agreement at ACAS.

Ministers wrote to the BMA on a number of occasions – four of these letters, between July and November 2015, were explicit requests to enter negotiations. The BMA refused on each occasion.