Eastleigh MP Mims Davies has welcomed the deal between the Government and junior doctors over pay and conditions but she has asked Jeremy Hunt to ensure flexible working for medics is a priority.
Mims spoke in Parliament after meeting with a junior doctor and new mother from Eastleigh who said should would struggle to fast track her career as a GP and look after her daughter, especially because her partner was a senior nurse.
Mims told Jeremy Hunt the doctor had “concerns around these negotiations and it weighs heavily upon this family, particularly around on-call working.
“Can I ask that agile working and family-first issues are truly taken into account where there are nurses and doctors trying to bring up families together?”
The minister replied the NHS did sometimes have very inflexible rostering systems but added: “I think this is one of the big wins of yesterday’s agreement because we are going to look at the way the rostering system works to try and bring in that flexibility.
“If we don’t do that, what we’ll see is more and more doctors saying they want to be locums or want to work for an agency and then you lose the continuity of care for patients, which is one of the best things about our GP system and that’s why we have an urgent need from the perspective of patients as well as doctors to address that issue.”
Mims also told MPs she welcomed the deal and praised the work of the Health Secretary and all those involved in the discussions.
Speaking after the debate, she added: “There are well publicised issues with GP surgeries in my constituency that are struggling to recruit doctors, so I’m very pleased that the minister has made it clear there need to be more flexibility in the system otherwise we will be left with too many locums at surgeries or vacancies which will inevitably lead to patients having to wait longer to see a doctor.”