Any fool can see that this new contract is in trouble and always has been and that to cling to it is to damage the fabric of the NHS for no useful purpose. None of the NHS’s endemic problems lie with these dedicated young people. This Jeremy Hunt cannot or will not see and he himself is now the main obstacle to progress and he must go. A politician’s job as a minister is to manage a ministry in the national interest. Never ending stand offs do not achieve that.
Moreover the fundamental concept is confused. A seven day NHS is not going to be made more likely by changes in the junior doctor’s contracts, because they already work longer hours than anybody else. The problems stem from a byzantine system of fragmented and quango regulated management, a failure to work out a funding system which automatically expands with demand, and a craven attitude to the hierarchical eighteenth century consultant structure which allows many of them to enrich themselves moonlighting in private practice. A seven day NHS will not help anything. Fix the funding, take back proper government responsibility for management and direction without all the quangos and foundations and open the system 24/7/365 on three eight hours shifts. And make the consultants work full time for the NHS or go and pay back their training costs at current replacement levels.
To do all that May must get rid of Hunt. If she fails and the NHS goes pear shaped, and parts of it already have, then Brexit triumph or no, the country will get rid of her.