PLANS to force new medical consultants to sign seven-day contracts have been described as “cynical” by doctors in Oxfordshire.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently announced that a new weekend working contract will be imposed on consultants unless they agree to sweeping changes within six weeks.

Plans include a crackdown on overtime pay and stopping them from opting out of working weekends and evenings.

Oxford GP Dr Catharine Benson, of the Beaumont Road Surgery, told the Oxford Mail the row over doctors’ conditions had left morale “awful”.

She added: “Most doctors work pretty hard and are dedicated to the task. I would rather be seen by a doctor working 50 hours a week rather than a doctor who isn’t well and working 100 hours a week.

“Morale is awful.”

And Oxford Medical Committee chairman Dr Prit Buttar called the move “cynical” and an “ill-thought out policy”.

He said: “It will have a dramatic effect on patients, but I don’t see it having a benefit. It is an ill-thought out policy.

“It is a very cynical exercise.”

Mr Hunt said the new contract was essential because patients are 15 per cent more likely to die at weekends and about 6,000 people die each year because of the lack of a “proper” seven-day service.

Under the current contract, only consultants in A&E are expected to work weekends, but Mr Hunt wants the new one, which would have to be signed by all newly qualified consultants, to come into effect by April 2017.

Speaking at a meeting of the King’s Fund in London, Mr Hunt said the British Medical Association (BMA) needed to “get real” over seven-day care and offered the ultimatum that if negotiations did not prevail he would impose a new contract.

He added: “I will not allow the BMA to be a road block to reforms that will save lives.”

His words have led to a petition calling for a vote of no confidence in Mr Hunt, which topped 200,000 signatures.

Dr Buttar, who practises at the Abingdon Surgery in Stert Street, said without more cash in the system consultants would just be more thinly spread, leading to a drop in weekday appointments.

The GP of 24 years added: “The bottom line is consultants are on duty at weekends. It’s just the fact that the hospital doesn’t have all its ancillary staff on duty.

“The only way you can do this is to cough up more money to have a lot more doctors.

“Or you can have the same resources but spread them more thinly, which means there will be fewer appointments to see consultants during the week.”