15:40 Shadow health secretary Dianne Abbott lambasts health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s decision to impose a new contract on junior doctors.
Read Pulse’s coverage of this afternoon’s big story here
There should be no suggestion that the junior doctors decision was illegitimate.The turnout was 68%, higher than the 2015 general election
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) July 6, 2016
13:48 The BMA has announced that Dr Ellen McCourt is the interim chair of the Junior Doctors Committee, following Dr Johann Malawana’s resignation yesterday.
Dr McCourt, who works in emergency medicine in Hull, was previously the deputy chair.
Congratulations to my successor. Ellen is an excellent choice for the committee and to lead junior doctors from here https://t.co/2Pb8X4cx5L
— johannmalawana (@johannmalawana) July 6, 2016
11:15 Responding to the CQC’s ‘inadequate’ rating for North Middlesex University Hospital, Local London Assembly Member Joanne McCartney blamed Government health policies for the situation in North West London – including closing a nearby A&E department.
She said: ‘Nobody can say they didn’t see this coming. This is the culmination of years of Government underfunding, unnecessary restructuring and the resounding impact of the closure at Chase Farm.’
09:50 A patient lay dead for over four hours undiscovered in a busy A&E department, the CQC has said.
The incident was one of 22 serious incidents logged by North Middlesex University Hospital’s A&E unit, which the CQC has rated to be ‘inadequate’.
But the BBC quotes the CQC’s hospital chief inspector Mike Richards as saying the hospital has already ‘turned a corner’ since the inspections in April and May.
He says the emergency department has a new leadership team, that there are ’moves to appoint more senior doctors’ and that, in the interim, the A&E department is getting ‘badly needed’ support from consultants called in from other departments in the hospital.
He added: ‘There is still much more that needs to be done. We will be watching their progress very closely.’
