HC Deb 13 April 1976 vol 909 cc493-4W
Mr. Nicholas Winterton

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether junior hospital doctors' contracts enable them to undertake private practice;

(2) if he will renegotiate the contracts of consultants working full time for the National Health Service to enable them to undertake private practice in the same way as junior hospital doctors.

Mrs. Renée Short

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has recently made any decisions affecting the right of junior hospital doctors to engage in private practice; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Ennals

There is no provision in the junior hospital doctors' contracts for them to undertake private practice. Outside the time for which he is contracted to the National Health Service it is open to a junior doctor to undertake other work, but this does not mean that junior doctors will be able to treat their own private patients in National Health Service hospitals. Pay beds and facilities are made available only to part-time consultants for treatment of their private patients and nothing in the new juniors' contract affects that position.

I am prepared, when counter-inflation policy permits, to negotiate about improvements in the existing contracts of consultants, but I have no plans to renegotiate the contracts of full-time consultants in the way suggested.