Jeremy Hunt: Are you digging for dirt on junior doctors because you can’t make yourself look good?

Last Updated: April 20, 2016By
Labour claims Jeremy Hunt's tactics have been exposed in the leaked e-mail [Image: Getty].

Labour claims Jeremy Hunt’s tactics have been exposed in the leaked e-mail [Image: Getty].

Jeremy Hunt has put his political life on the critical list.

Determined not to back down on his plans to impose (or introduce, it makes no difference to This Writer) his potentially fatal contract on junior doctors, and knowing how unreasonable this is, it seems he decided to try to undermine our brave medics by finding a way to make them look worse than him.

He should have known his ploy would be discovered.

Look at all the other misdemeanours we’ve found out about him:

And remember his friend Michael Gove’s trip to the wrong medical centre, in an attempt to support ‘Germy’ Hunt’s claim that we don’t have a seven-day NHS?

The leaked email shows that Hunt was dreaming up yet another ‘dead cat’ strategy. If challenged, it seems likely he would have dragged out whatever evidence he could get the junior doctors were refusing to engage with hospital bosses, saying: “If you think I’m bad, what about this?”

Except, of course, that two wrongs don’t make a right, and therefore he won’t win any arguments with his silly plan.

This Writer particularly enjoys the desperate efforts by NHS Improvement and the Department of Health to cover ‘Germy’s posterior.

An NHS Improvement spokesman said: “We’ve heard anecdotally that engagement with junior doctors was an issue for some trusts and wanted to check if this was the case.”

Anecdotally, is it? So there’s no evidence to support the claim and besides, it was only a few people making the claim. Either these people do not exist or they have an axe to grind – or they have been paid by Conservatives to cause a stir.

“It’s absolutely essential to know how well hospitals are able to engage with their clinicians as the new contract for junior doctors is introduced.”

We know what will happen; junior doctors will refuse the contract and hospitals will be left struggling to cope. And the doctors won’t be to blame!

“This is a major undertaking and we’re supporting trusts to engage with junior doctors because we want the contract to be introduced consistently and without compromising patient safety.”

Wouldn’t it be better, for an organisation calling itself ‘NHS Improvement’, to support doctors in their struggle for an equitable agreement that doesn’t put patients’ health at risk?

Here’s the Department of Health spokesman. Asked if ‘Germy’ was “digging for dirt”, he said: “This is a better offer for junior doctors – 90 per cent agreed in talks – which will lead to shorter hours, better training and far higher basic pay, and so naturally we want to see that the facts are being communicated through the NHS to doctors working hard on the frontline, given how badly served those doctors have been by their union.”

That’s no less than seven outright lies in a single sentence.

Jeremy Hunt has been accused of digging for dirt on junior doctors after pre-strike tactics were exposed in a leaked e-mail.

The message shows how hospitals were urged to hand over evidence of medics being obstructive towards the top Tory’s 7-day NHS contract.

The Health Secretary has repeatedly accused the BMA union of refusing to negotiate ahead of doctors’ first ever A&E walkout.

Now it has emerged hospital bosses were asked if they could provide cases of doctors declining to meet them.

An urgent e-mail was sent to hospital trusts by state body NHS Improvement on Monday and leaked to the Health Service Journal.

It said: “Following a meeting between the Secretary of State and Kathy McLean, NHS Improvement’s Medical Director this morning, we have been asked for some urgent information.”

The e-mail listed one other point before saying: “Evidence that your trusts have tried to hold meetings with junior doctors but have not been successful as JDs are not engaging.”

Labour Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said: “It’s disgraceful that Jeremy Hunt is ordering hospital bosses to dig up dirt on junior doctors rather than trying to negotiate with them.”

“This whole sorry saga has been made worse by the bullish behaviour of the Health Secretary who appears more interested in picking fights with junior doctors than doing what is in the best interest of patients,” he added.

Source: Jeremy Hunt accused of ‘digging for dirt’ on junior doctors after e-mail to hospital chiefs is leaked – Mirror Online

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2 Comments

  1. Barry Davies April 21, 2016 at 9:09 am - Reply

    Classic tory misdirection just like cameron in pmq’s whose knee jerk response is to blame the party opposite or say they are doing the same as the party opposite rather than attempting to answer any question, I used to call it punch and judy, but there was more date and sense in punch and judy That’s the way to do it was at least a positive statement.

  2. mrmarcpc April 25, 2016 at 2:41 pm - Reply

    He couldn’t make himself look good if he tried, CHunt is a useless, devious, clueless, moronic halfwit who should do everyone a favour and just go!

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