The Government wants the changes to make it cheaper for hospitals to roster doctors at weekends, but medics fear it will lead to the workforce being overstretched.
The new terms of employment re-define anti-social hours and make it cheaper for hospitals to roster doctors on weekends and evenings.
The industrial action is being taken over a new contract proposed by Mr Hunt which would re-define anti-social hours and make it cheaper for hospitals to roster doctors on weekends and evenings.
But Mr Hunt made an impassioned defence of the Government's plan to cut out-of-hours pay for junior doctors so hospitals could roster more doctors at weekends, saying he could not ignore studies which indicate higher mortality for patients admitted to hospital at weekends.
The new system makes it a third cheaper for hospitals to roster junior doctors to work at weekends, he says.
Hunt will argue that trainees will still be able to earn the same money as now, despite banding disappearing, by still receiving extra money from the on-call supplement, out-of-hours payments, "flexible pay premia" – financial inducements to persuade juniors to choose certain branches of medicine suffering from major shortages of doctors – additional rostered hours and the extra 11%.
When women come into the hospital for labour, birth and postnatal care they will be cared for by whichever midwives and doctors are rostered for duty.
Any hours a junior doctor is rostered to work beyond 7pm on a weekday, and any hours on a weekend, are paid at a small premium.
These efforts culminated in the development of a national code of practice around working hours, shift work, and rostering for hospital doctors [ 9].
The government has also agreed to introduce further protections to prevent unsafe working: reducing the number of night shifts doctors can be asked to work in a row, and guaranteeing no doctor would be rostered to work consecutive weekends.
Rather than expand consumer options, they will drive patients into restrictive types of H.M.O.'s that limit patients to a small roster of doctors.
