Content area
Full Text
I don't want this weekly column to become party political. But I do need to discuss (again) the behaviour of Jeremy Hunt, England's health secretary. I have never seen frontline NHS staff so pressured, finances so parlous, and clinicians' mood so low. Hunt has told parliament that he is commissioning a review into the poor morale of junior doctors, apparently in denial about his own leading role in its causes. 1
Hunt's lack of insight was apparent in a recent Guardian interview, in which he asserted his commitment to the NHS's values and funding model, his regard for doctors' work ethic, and his view that sustained hostility from them just came with the job. 2 As the journalist Joan Smith commented, he seems "unembarrassable." 3
Hunt has claimed that making himself the centre of an avoidable industrial relations dispute with junior doctors, and imposing a contract on them, is justified by "several studies" describing higher mortality among patients admitted at weekends." 4 And that causing major unrest among a workforce that was critical to patient care was "what any responsible health secretary would do." 5 But is it?
For starters, as Hunt...