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Bloody-minded unions? Yes, the BMA is deadly (The Times)

Monday, 7th July 2008

I have a piece in today's Times on Dr Hamish Meldrum and the BMA. Here's an extract:

...When we think of bloody-minded unions, it's the likes of Jack Jones and Bob Crow that usually spring to mind. But when it comes to feather-bedding, screwing the public and a rigidly focused protection of its members' interest at the expense of everyone else, no other union comes close to the the British Medical Association.
Yesterday Hamish Meldrum, the BMA's chairman, added another string to its bow: cruelty. Speaking about the current rules governing co-payment - patients forced to pay privately for drugs denied by the NHS are then deemed non-people and refused any further NHS treatment - Dr Meldrum said the NHS should not treat patients who have paid for drugs themselves: “My gut instinct is that this goes against the sort of NHS I believe in, which is free at the point of use, fair and equitable to all.” And which, he didn't add, would let patients die rather than use a drug their health authority will not supply. Equity it may be; but it can be the equity of death.
But no one should be surprised at the sheer callousness of Dr Meldrum's position. The notion that an organisation which represents doctors ought somehow to have the patient's interest in mind is attractive. But it is also naive. When it comes to the public, the BMA sees us as little more than a cash cow.

Take its most recent campaign against polyclinics. The union's claim that it seeks only to protect the supposedly wonderful relationship between GPs and their patients is pure sophistry. All it wants to protect is the income its members receive. The BMA stiffed the incompetent Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, in the negotiations over the GP contract. Doctors were given the chance to stop all evening and weekend work in return for a 6 per cent pay cut. Then they were offered vast sums to hit a series of basic targets, so that today GP pay averages more than £100,000, even though the basic agreed sum is £55,000.
When Alan Johnson, Hewitt's successor as Health Secretary, made the reasonable suggestion that GPs might consider changing their opening hours to accommodate their patients' working hours, Dr Meldrum responded by demanding yet more money for his members...

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Ray

July 7th, 2008 9:01am

All the more reason why David Cameron and Andrew Lansley and desperately need to ditch their misbegotten support for everything the BMA seems to spout lately.

Robert

July 7th, 2008 5:31pm

So long as the great British public labours under the delusion that doctors, like nurses, are invariably "wonderful" and "deserve every penny they get", politicians will have difficulty taking them on.

paul hill

July 7th, 2008 9:56pm

Refreshing to see some really decent coverage of this one.

The Governments agenda with Polyclinics is simply to say"Well we don't have a clue how to pay GP's what they are actually worth(about £48 K) so we'll let private sector Polyclinic managements do the dirty work for us".

Both sides know this but thanks to the indolence of the MSM it never gets debated in public

Bravo Mr Pollard!!

Jennie

July 7th, 2008 10:29pm

I thought that the midweek half-day closing of GP surgeries was to compensate for their being open on Saturday mornings. My GP surgery hasn't opened on Saturday for years - but has kept the Thursday afternoon closing.