General practice needs long-term rescue plan
  Urgent action is needed on a long-term rescue plan for general practice, further to a GP contract deal for England. As a result of annual negotiations between the BMA GPs committee and NHS Employers, a £220m investment for 2016-17 will take into account rising GP practice expenses and is designed to result in a pay uplift of 1 per cent for GPs following years of decline. The GP contract announcement will mean no changes to QOF (quality and outcomes framework) thresholds or the number of points available for 2016-17, minimising unnecessary disruption for practices with a commitment to explore, among other possi...
Source: BMA News - February 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Junior contract imposition: 'all options' considered
Junior doctors leaders will meet this weekend to discuss next steps after the Government’s ‘bullying’ approach to impose a new contract on trainees in England. The BMA junior doctors committee will meet in London for talks about how to respond to the decision last week by health secretary Jeremy Hunt to impose a new contract from this August. Of the 20 trust chief executives cited in a letter from chief negotiator Sir David Dalton to the health secretary, 14 have already distanced themselves from the contract imposition. JDC chair Johann Malawana has been attending regional JDC meetings across England thi...
Source: BMA News - February 18, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Northern Ireland: commitment to contract negotiation welcomed
  The Northern Ireland Government is committed to working with the BMA in reaching a negotiated settlement on a new contract for junior doctors. BMA Northern Ireland junior doctors committee chair Conan Castles (pictured above left) welcomed comments from health minister Simon Hamilton (pictured above right), who said that his Government ‘did not want to impose a contract’ on juniors. The comments came in the wake of health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that he would seek to impose a new contract on doctors in England, an outcome Dr Castles said he wanted to avoid. He said: ‘We agree wi...
Source: BMA News - February 18, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Investment 'completely inadequate' to meet NHS needs
  Financial mismanagement by Government is compromising patient care, the BMA has warned, following reports of NHS trusts facing multi-billion pound deficits. Findings from a quarterly review by the King’s Fund, based on 83 NHS trusts in England, reveal that 67 per cent of trusts and 89 per cent of acute hospitals are predicting to be in deficit at the end of 2015/16. The total estimated deficit is £2.3bn. The review also found that around half (53 and 48 per cent respectively) of trust finance directors and CCG (clinical commissioning group) finance leaders felt that care quality in their area had deterio...
Source: BMA News - February 17, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Clinical strategy a 'launch pad' for debate
  A national clinical strategy for Scotland should be a ‘launch pad’ for a debate on securing the NHS for the future, the BMA said. BMA Scotland council chair Peter Bennie (pictured) welcomed the strategy’s recognition of the pressures on services and warned current service models were unsustainable. The strategy, described as a blueprint for health and social care for Scotland for the next 10 to 15 years, outlines plans to modernise the way care is delivered. Dr Bennie said the BMA had warned that demographic pressures, problems in recruiting and retaining doctors and constrained resources were maki...
Source: BMA News - February 17, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Overseas students face training curb
Overseas graduates of UK medical schools could be denied the opportunity to continue their NHS training. The BMA is fighting proposed immigration changes which aim to restrict the link between the visas given to overseas students studying at UK medical schools and the visas they then use to progress on to specialty training. There are around 500 overseas graduates of UK medical schools each year who could be affected by the MAC (Migration Advisory Committee) proposal, which makes recommendations to the Government on immigration issues. The Government has not yet responded to the proposals. BMA council chair Mark Porter (p...
Source: BMA News - February 17, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

DH report: seven-day services need greater investment
The BMA's argument that expanding seven-day services needs more investment and staff has been vindicated by a leaked Government document, which claims 4,000 extra doctors will be needed to achieve such an aim. The draft Department of Health report backs up the association's consistent assertion, which is supported by research, that a 'seven-day NHS' is only possible with a significant increase in funding and staffing. A copy of the report, 'Seven-day NHS — update on progress and plans', seen by the Guardian, argues that community and social services are currently unable to support increased weekend discharges, and t...
Source: BMA News - February 16, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Call for more training places in Scotland
The BMA has called on the Scottish Government to develop more training places for doctors to ensure medical students have somewhere to work after graduating. First minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Wednesday that investment of more than £23 million would increase the number of medical school places. She added that a new entry-level programme for applicants from deprived backgrounds would help widen access to medicine as a career. In addition, Scotland’s first graduate-entry programme for medicine would help support students who worked in the NHS after they qualified, Ms Sturgeon said. She added: ‘At p...
Source: BMA News - February 12, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Off the record slow progress on organ donation changes
  A poll published at the weekend indicates once again that Scottish people are in favour of a change in organ donation law, writes Jennifer Trueland. More than half (54 per cent) of those questioned in a YouGov poll for The Times said they preferred an opt-out system in which people have to indicate if they do not consent to donating their organs after their death, compared with 37 per cent who say they favour the current opt-in system, in which people have to give consent. The poll may be new, but the findings chime with those of previous surveys, which have consistently suggested that support for the status quo is ...
Source: BMA News - February 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Turnaround on health impact assessments
  All legislation in Wales could be assessed for its impact on public health after lobbying by the BMA. Statutory HIAs (health impact assessments) were included in the green paper for the Public Health (Wales) Bill but were dropped when the bill was published. However, after hard lobbying by BMA Cymru Wales, the assessments will now be included as a Welsh Government amendment. Health minister Mark Drakeford said he had been strongly influenced by evidence presented by the association. Speaking at a meeting of the National Assembly’s health and social care committee, Professor Drakeford said: ‘I’ve re...
Source: BMA News - February 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Contract imposition 'a total failure'
The BMA has attacked the Government’s ‘bullying’ approach to impose a new contract on junior doctors in England condemning it as a ‘total failure’ on ministers’ part. Junior doctors leaders said the decision announced by health secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) in the Commons was driven by politics rather than an attempt to come to a reasonable solution for trainees, who would not accept the contract. BMA junior doctors committee chair Johann Malawana said: ‘The Government’s shambolic handling of this process from start to finish has totally alienated a generation of junior do...
Source: BMA News - February 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

GPs face 'epic' workforce crisis
  Doctors and patients have been helping to spread the word about the crisis in general practice. Almost 1,300 people have used the Twitter #GPinCrisis to share their experiences and express support for the BMA’s campaign Urgent Prescription for General Practice. The campaign was launched last week with a series of ‘heatmaps’ (see above) highlighting the pressures on general practice across England and Wales, materials to support practices and a checklist of urgent actions for the Government. Patients have also been giving their experiences of the pressures facing general practice. A patient campaig...
Source: BMA News - February 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Stories from the picket lines — Nottingham
Junior doctors taking industrial action in Nottingham received huge support from the public and other NHS professionals. A group of around 80 formed a picket line outside the Queen’s Medical Centre from 8am until the early afternoon. Among them was Darren Chan (pictured above, right), a foundation doctor 2 from the City Hospital doing rotation at a GP surgery in Hucknall, who said: ‘We’ve been having a lot of people tooting their horns as they go past and a generally very positive response from the public. ‘Allied health professionals and nurses have also been coming up and telling us to keep it up ...
Source: BMA News - February 11, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Stories from the picket lines
Junior doctors explain their fears with the Government contract proposal in the first instalment from picket lines across England Life savers make an entrance Junior doctors in Derbyshire used their training to provide lifesaving skills to the parents of around 100 babies and children. Shifts of eight paediatric trainees are giving respiratory and cardiac arrest training to 35 parents per session inside St Peter’s Church Hall, Derby. Each of the four slots today are fully booked. Derby foundation doctor 2 Sam Thacker, who attended, said: ‘There’s a talk at the start about why [this knowledge is] import...
Source: BMA News - February 10, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news

Stories from the picket lines — Bristol
In the second instalment from the picket lines, junior doctors in Bristol explain why they are prepared to take the drastic measure of stopping work There was a festive spirit outside St Michael's Hospital in Bristol with doctors singing and cheering as passing traffic beeped in support. ‘It's not about the money,’ the trainees chorused in an adapted version of the Jessie J song Pricetag. ‘Could you save a life if you've been up all night?’ The words struck a chord with Catharine Brindley, a specialty trainee 3 in paediatrics, who did an 80-hour week in the run up to Christmas, including five hours...
Source: BMA News - February 10, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news