It is nearly seven years since junior doctors paralysed parts of the NHS in a row over new contracts. At the heart of that dispute was the government’s determination to deliver on a Conservative 2015 manifesto promise to provide a seven-day NHS. Research had long established that patients were more likely to die if admitted over the weekend, which was widely considered to reflect lower standards of care and inadequate staffing. Jeremy Hunt, then health secretary and now chancellor, effectively won that argument, with Saturdays now treated for the purposes of junior doctors the same as any other working day. Yet it is clear that, even now, the NHS is still far from the seven-day service that the Conservatives promised in 2015, with significant consequences
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