WARRINGTON Hospital has been urged to refuse to impose a contract being implemented on junior doctors by the government.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that he will force junior doctors to accept a new contract if they cannot agree a deal in a long-running battle of working conditions, including the proposed removal of safeguards that prevent junior doctors from being overworked.

But Cllr Kevin Bennett has called on Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Mel Pickup to refuse to impose the contract on their juniors.

In an open letter to Ms Pickup, he said: “None of the 152 foundation trust hospitals in England will be obliged to force their junior doctors to accept the deal that this government is threatening to impose on to the junior doctors and can instead offer them better terms.

“Therefore I am asking you to commit publicly to not implementing Jeremy Hunt’s contract.

“More than half of the NHS bosses named on a letter advising the government to do whatever necessary to resolve a dispute with junior doctors have said they are against the imposition of the contracts.

“Jeremy Hunt’s contract is iniquitous, unnecessary and potentially dangerous for patients and staff – Jeremy Hunt’s move could have serious consequences for the NHS in both the short and long-term.”

Cllr Bennett encouraged the hospital to ‘negotiate locally’ and said that Jeremy Hunt had ‘denigrated the medical profession’.

He added: “The main risk is that even more newly-qualified doctors will decide not to continue their career in protest at a contract they regard as unfair – the numbers choosing not to stay in the NHS and start specialist training has gone down for the last four years in a row.

“Many of the medical royal colleges have voiced serious unease about the prospect of that happening and thus worsening existing, sometimes serious, shortages of medical personnel.

“Jeremy Hunt has denigrated the medical profession and does not understand the way hospitals operate or are structured – the fact that hospitals are trying to find ways around contract imposition underlines the extent to which the decision to impose a contract that nobody wants would destroy morale in the NHS.”

Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has elected to respond to Cllr Bennett’s letter privately.