I HAVE sent a letter today to Michelle Donelan, my local MP for Chippenham (copied below), as a result of the 38 Degrees campaign to try to get the junior doctors’ dispute resolved without imposing a clearly unpopular contract on our hard working junior doctors.

‘I am becoming increasingly concerned at the potential impact of the contractual dispute between the BMA and the government resulting in the junior doctors going on strike yet again under the threat of contract imposition by Jeremy Hunt.

As someone who increasingly has to rely on the NHS for healthcare, and having to have hospital surgical treatment on three occasions in the past 18 months, the escalation of this dispute is one that I am acutely aware of and worried about.

This situation needs to be resolved in the way that all employment matters are dealt with in any professional organisation, through negotiation and compromise on both sides. I have no idea or way of really knowing where things have broken down, or indeed which party is most to blame but here is what I do know: 1. The NHS is an essential public service that everyone in this country uses to a greater or lesser extent.

2. I have seen from my own experience the increasing pressure on NHS services and the outsourcing of public services to the private sector (two of my three surgical procedures have been undertaken in private facilities paid for by the NHS).

3. I fail to understand why junior doctors have ever been expected to work the hours they do, for the levels of pay they receive, when it is common sense that this is likely to be detrimental to the service levels and safety of patients and the health of doctors.

4. If we want a properly resourced seven-day NHS, this will need to be paid for at the appropriate level and not provided on a skeleton budget.

5. I have absolutely no desire for this country to go any further towards a privatised health service which is clearly the current direction of this government.

Having travelled on business and personally all over the world, I know for a fact that the reality of a private healthcare system is a worse service for the vast majority of people and a higher cost to the taxpayer.

As I am sure I am not your only constituent very worried about the state of our NHS and the increasingly bitter dispute with the junior doctors, can I urge you to consider adding your voice to the Secretary of State for Health to find some way to resolve this contractual negotiation without resorting to autocratic brute force.’

KEITH FLETCHER

Pheasant Close

Chippenham