The Conservative party pledged to give us a ‘truly seven-day NHS’ by 2020 but these plans are looking increasingly unlikely, especially in the wake of leaked secret papers which shows that junior doctors were right all along to boycott the controversial proposals.
The leaked papers – obtained by Channel 4 News and the Guardian – show 13 major risks to Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s plans.
A secret ‘risk register’ included in the documents written by civil servants include the NHS having too few staff to cope with a seven-day system, as well as not enough money.
The papers also refers to the NHS’ own 1.5 million staff – chiefly doctors - as ‘a barrier’ to the plans – because they don’t believe that it can work. They also reveal internal arguments between those in charge of the plans.
Brexit was also cited as a negative impact on the plans – because the NHS currently employs 55,000 staff from the EU.
Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson has now called for an inquiry into the plans, tweeting: 'The junior doctors’ concerns were right. Hunt misled the public.'
Shadow health secretary Diane Abbott said: ‘This is a scandal. The government is undermining the NHS with plans it knew to be unworkable. I will be writing to Jeremy Hunt to ask him to explain why [he] has contravened his civil servants’ advice and to ascertain whether he has misled parliament.’
Junior doctors have previously striked out over their new contract, walking out for two days in April, arguing that patients’ lives will be put at risk as they NHS is stretched further.
The contract changes their hours and pay in favour of moving towards a seven-day NHS. Though doctors’ basic pay will go up by 13.5 per cent, the unsociable hours that they will be working across the weekends will lead to an increase in tiredness, burnout and human error.
Doctors also won’t receive extra pay for working on Saturdays.
It looks like the junior doctors were right all along that plans for a seven-day NHS are unfeasible. Well, what do you expect with even more demand being put on an increasingly stretched and underfunded system? The NHS isn’t magic.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.