JEREMY HUNT showed his utter contempt for health professionals and unions yesterday after he vowed to carry out his threat to force junior doctors to sign potentially dangerous new contracts.

The Health Secretary told the Commons he would plough ahead with imposing the new contracts, claiming that he had made a “best and final” offer to the British Medical Association (BMA) on Wednesday during its strike, but the offer was rejected.

He even went as far to say that given time the changes would be accepted as “a good thing.”

However BMA junior doctors committee chair Dr Johann Malawana hit back at claims of a “best offer.”

He said that instead of working with the BMA to reach an agreement that is in the best interests of patients, junior doctors and the NHS as a whole, “the government has walked away, rejecting a fair and affordable offer put forward by the BMA. Instead it wants to impose a flawed contract on a generation of junior doctors who have lost all trust in the Health Secretary.

“Junior doctors already work around the clock, seven days a week and they do so under their existing contract.

“If the government wants more seven-day services then, quite simply, it needs more doctors, nurses and diagnostic staff, and the extra investment needed to deliver it.

“Rather than addressing these issues, the Health Secretary is ploughing ahead with proposals that are fundamentally unfair.

Labour also weighed into the row, with shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander condemning it as “the biggest gamble with patient safety this House has ever seen.”

She told Mr Hunt: “You have failed to win the trust of the very people who keep our hospitals running and you have failed to convince the public of your grounds for change.

“Imposing a contract is a sign of failure. It’s about time you realised that.”

The Health Secretary’s decision left health unions reeling, with Unite national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe accusing Mr Hunt of taking the “nuclear option.”

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “This is a cynical move by Jeremy Hunt and a disaster for NHS industrial relations. It’s proof the government regards the views of hardworking NHS staff as worthless.”