Tim Farron on junior doctors’ strike

Tim Farron has commented on yesterday's strike over shift patterns, patient safety and pay.

The strike is the result of the Government's serious mismanagement of negotiations with junior doctors. Healthcare professionals, patients and the public have been let down.

Throughout this process, the Government seems to have focused more on political point scoring than engaging with junior doctors in a respectful way which recognises that they are dedicated public servants, who work extremely hard, caring for people in need.

The Government must urgently resume talks with the BMA and stop their megaphone diplomacy. Our NHS and everyone who relies on it, deserve much better than this.

Junior doctors are notoriously overworked and have not been on strike since 1975 so I am not surprised that they enjoy majority public support in this dispute.

While the NHS is already a 7 day operation to a great extent, it does seem reasonable to me to seek to extend this. While the mortality statistics behind this move have been debunked, it is well understood that the service at weekends is not as good as during the week. And hospitals are reluctant to schedule more doctors to work at the weekends if it costs more than working during the week, hence the impetus to change the contract.

To make this wizzo idea a good idea that benefits patients overall, all the government would need to do is ensure that doctors are not overworked and subjected to unreasonable shift patterns, and that medicine remained an attractive career even to people who would like to have some time off at sociable hours. Hence the dispute.

* Joe Otten is a councillor in Sheffield and Tuesday editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, described by The Liberator as a 'fanatically loyal Clegg acolyte'