D-day for Jeremy Hunt: High Court set to deliver its verdict on controversial contracts


  • Jeremy Hunt was part of a two-day High Court hearing in London last week
  • Campaign group Justice for Health claim he acted beyond his powers
  • But the Health Secretary said the complaint should be dismissed

Stephen Matthews For Mailonline

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Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will find out his verdict from the two-day High Court hearing last week

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is waiting for a High Court judge’s ruling after junior doctors complained he had wrongly imposed a new contract.

Campaign group Justice for Health claim he acted beyond the scope of his powers by compelling NHS employers to adopt the new terms.

But Mr Hunt says the complaint is without substance and should be dismissed.

Mr Justice Green, who analysed evidence at over a two-day High Court hearing in London last week, is scheduled to deliver a ruling tomorrow.

Justice for Health – founded by five junior doctors – says the contract put forward by Mr Hunt is unsafe and unsustainable.

Set-up by Dr Nadia Masood, Dr Ben White, Dr Fran Silman, Dr Amar Mashru and Dr Marie-Estella McVeigh – they say his decision to impose the contract lacks a sound or rational foundation.

Mr Hunt says he approved a new contract but has not imposed it on employers or compelled them to adopt it.

The litigation follows opposition to Mr Hunt’s plans for seven-day NHS services in England.

Junior doctors began strikes, the longest of which has lasted two days, in January.

Justice for Health, a group founded by five junior doctors, says the contract put forward by Mr Hunt is unsafe and unsustainable

But the British Medical Association, which represents doctors, has suspended industrial action by junior doctors planned for October, November and December.

They cited concerns about patient safety as being the main reason. 

News of the suspension was welcomed by the Department of Health, which urged the BMA to call off industrial action permanently in the interests of patients. 

Dr Ellen McCourt, chair of the BMA junior doctors committee, said the decision had been taken ‘in light of feedback from doctors, patients and the public, and following a passionate, thoughtful and wide-ranging debate amongst junior doctors’.

The Government and BMA remain at loggerheads over the new contract for junior doctors, which the Department of Health says will help to provide a seven-day NHS.

Dr McCourt said the dispute hinged on how the NHS will assure quality care over seven days. 

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