HEALTH Secretary Jeremy Hunt was accused yesterday of launching a “wholesale attack on doctors” following threats to enforce new seven-day contracts if they did not agree to work more weekends.

Doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA) described the ultimatum as a “blatant attempt” by the government to distract from its “refusal to invest properly in emergency care.”

Mr Hunt has given the union six weeks to negotiate changes to contracts for hospital consultants and junior doctors after claiming that around 6,000 lives were lost a year due to the lack of senior staff working on weekends.