EMMA LEWELL-BUCK MP: Government's treatment of junior doctors chips away at NHS to force privatisation

Their treatment of the Junior Doctors fits with this aim, because once the workforce has gone there is no NHS left. Private health care will be all that remains and only then for those well off enough to afford it.

Of course, the Government don’t have the guts to admit what they are doing, so the narrative they weave is to try and turn the public against the junior doctors by peddling misinformation.

The Department for Health and Social Care has posted ‘massaged’ salary figures which included additional earnings that didn’t represent basic pay to paint our NHS heroes as fat-cats. The reality is that junior doctors have faced a 26% real terms pay cut since 2010 and their salary is £14.09 per hour, that’s the hourly rate the Government thinks someone who saves lives is worth.

Retention is becoming impossible as doctors leave and are no longer replaced but those who remain are expected to spread themselves thinner. Agency workers and outsourcing become the alternative. Privatisation through the back door.

Another myth trotted out by the Government is that the striking staff are to blame for huge waiting times, when the reality is that waiting times in A&E have often been equal or longer under non-strike conditions; such is the state of the NHS after 13 years of Tory cuts.

Many people don’t realise that most doctors in any hospital are junior doctors, they just don’t introduce themselves as such. They aren’t a small group of trainees they are qualified doctors in clinical training, training length that can vary depending on their specialism. Sometimes they can be the most senior doctor on a ward in their speciality but still in training for several years.

Just think of all the times you or your loved ones have received treatment. Think of the highly skilled work junior doctors do. Do you really think they are only worth £14.09 an hour? I certainly don’t.