Jeremy Hunt: Decision to impose new contracts on junior doctors just the start of seven-day working across NHS

The decision to impose new contracts on junior doctors is just the start of seven-day working across the NHS, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told ITV News.

Speaking to Political Editor Robert Peston, Mr Hunt said he hoped there wouldn't be further conflict when negotiating the new contracts with other medical professionals in the NHS such as consultants and radiographers.

He was speaking after announcing the new contract will be imposed on junior doctors in England after negotiations with the British Medical Association failed.

Mr Hunt said: "The other staff that we've been particularly thinking about with respect to seven-day care have been willing to sit round the table and have sensible negotiations."

He added: "We're making good progress but reforming contracts as you rightly said is not just about junior doctors but consultants and other people as well."

Asked if he believed he was in a similar situation to Margaret Thatcher versus the miners, Mr Hunt said it's wasn't tenable for a health secretary to "cave in to a union if it's the wrong thing for patients."

The British Medical Association responded to Mr Hunt's announcement saying it believed the contract was "bad for the future of patient care, the profession and the NHS".

But Mr Hunt told ITV News: "I think my own job would be on the line if as Health Secretary I was ignoring huge amounts of evidence - eight studies now in five years - that say that our weekend mortality rates are too high.

"I think the job as health secretary when you're faced with that kind of evidence is not to let these problems go on and on and on, not to sweep them under the carpet but to say actually no we've got to do something about those and I think that's what the job of health secretary is."