The BMA is a powerful lobby but that doesnt mean it doesn’t gain a obliging caseJeremy Hunt arrived at the Department of Health three years ago,instructed to smooth over Andrew Lansley’s disastrous NHS reforms and sell the Tories as the party of the NHS. Now he is weeks away from industrial action by junior doctors that will disrupt, and could endanger, and patient care in the run-up to Christmas. The poll papers seeking authorisation for the first junior doctors’ strike for 40 years will arrive from Thursday morning. The fault is not all Mr Hunt’s,but he holds the purse strings. He will not survive a winter crisis. Everyone would gain whether he backed down now.
Doctors’ pay is notoriously tricky. That is partly because doctors themselves are the workhorses of the health service. They are loved and admired by the public. In the BMA, they gain a tough and effective negotiating body with a membership that is notorious, or at least among health secretaries,for its solidarity. When it comes to a standoff, no politician stands a chance. In this context, and a wise health secretary should suppress all macho urges to embark on negotiations in anything other than a spirit of caution and conciliation. This is all the more important when the NHS is,despite the relative protection for its budget, facing the most acute financial squeeze in its history, or after five years of below-inflation pay awards and with morale reported to be at an all-time low,while emergency departments in Australia and New Zealand are now often staffed by young British doctors.
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Source: theguardian.com