The daughter of Tory former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell has called for Jeremy Hunt to be sacked over his handling of the junior doctor contract row.
Dr Hannah Mitchell accused the Health Secretary of misusing statistics and alienating "an entire generation" of her colleagues.
In a letter to The Guardian, Dr Mitchell wrote: "What Jeremy Hunt has managed to achieve is nothing short of spectacular.
"Health secretaries have come and gone, imposing new measures of varying unpopularity on the NHS but not one has managed to so completely unite doctors in their dislike and alienate healthcare workers across the board in the way he has.
"He says we lack vocation, he paints us as the problem. The morale of the workforce is at breaking point, with imposition the goodwill of doctors who work hours beyond those they are rota-ed and paid to do will dry up."
Dr Mitchell, who is likely to seek permanent work in South Africa after her research fellowship in Botswana and a posting in Sierra Leone, said her colleagues had been incensed by Mr Hunt's claim that the new contract was needed to avoid preventable deaths at the weekend.
"I am one of the many junior doctors who have left the UK. If he goes ahead with imposition of contract I am certainly unlikely to return to the UK to continue clinical practice," she added. "The Health Secretary has alienated an entire generation of junior doctors, we have no confidence in him, he must be sacked."
Former international development secretary Mr Mitchell, a long-standing friend of Mr Hunt, praised his daughter as a "fantastic doctor".
"There is no three-line whipping system in the Mitchell family," he said. "We are an open democracy and there is no dad in the country who is prouder of his daughters and the fantastic doctor that Hannah has become.
"Whatever the merits of this matter the junior hospital doctors are a dedicated, hard-working and inspiring group of people, although inevitably the Government is responsible for managing this resource."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here