Study shows student dismay over contract
Nearly three-quarters of medical students admit they are more likely to pursue their careers outside the NHS because of dismay with the junior doctors’ contract.
A survey of medical students in England carried out by the BMA that received more than 1,000 responses shows the shocking extent to which many feel disillusioned with the prospect of having to work under an imposed contract.
A total of 74.5 per cent said they were more likely to pursue a career outside the NHS, with 82.9 per cent saying they were more likely to leave the UK to pursue medicine; 82.4 per cent of respondents said the contract and EIA (equality ...
Source: BMA News - April 22, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Contract imposition 'unworkable'
Senior hospital leaders have revealed they fear an unprecedented crisis of morale and recruitment if they are forced to bring in the new junior doctors’ contract.
The medical directors and other leading clinicians — without whose support, the contract could become unworkable — have issued a bleak assessment of unfilled rotas and a disenfranchised generation of doctors.
One described it as a ‘disaster waiting to happen’. Umesh Prabhu, a medical director and expert on patient safety, said ‘morale has taken a huge hit’.
He said it was imperative that health secretary Jeremy Hunt, who...
Source: BMA News - April 21, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Funding boost for primary care
The BMA has described as ‘significant’ a raft of proposals designed to provide sustainable long-term support for general practice.
In a report published today, NHS England sets out a series of measures aimed at tackling the mounting crisis of workforce, investment and workload facing GPs, with many of its recommendations based on calls previously made by the association.
BMA GPs committee chair Chaand Nagpaul said the General Practice Forward View represented the most promising plan for general practice in more than a decade, crediting the support package to years of intense lobbying and hard work by the BMA.
H...
Source: BMA News - April 21, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Health secretary rejects return to negotiation
The health secretary has rejected the chance to end next week’s planned strike action by dropping the threat of imposition.
In a letter sent to Mr Hunt on Tuesday, BMA junior doctors committee chair Johann Malawana urged Mr Hunt to ‘make the right decision for patients, doctors and the long-term future of the NHS’.
Mr Hunt announced his decision to impose the contract, in which doctors have no confidence, in February and junior doctors have now felt forced to take to the picket lines four times. Further industrial action, this time a full withdrawal of service by junior doctors in England, is plann...
Source: BMA News - April 20, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Speaking truth to power: a tribute to Sandy Macara
Sandy Macara could forgive almost any fault in people, but would go after a bad idea with an axe. There were those, especially in government, who had trouble reconciling the slight, urbane, radiantly optimistic clergyman’s son with the fiery, eloquent denunciations he delivered.
Most famously, he asked in 1995 why so many doctors were abandoning medicine, the country or both.
His answer: ‘We are labouring under an alien regime. Not so much an internal market as an infernal bazaar in which considerations of cost reign supreme, while concerns for value and values are relegated to second place.’
But he late...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Imposition or offer? Contract confusion deepens
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s policy on the junior doctors' contract was in ‘complete disarray’ when he spoke of ‘imposing’ it after Government lawyers appeared to have changed tack on the language.
A five-page letter from the Government's legal department to solicitors acting for a group of junior doctors speaks of ‘introducing’ and ‘approving the terms’ of the contract, but not imposing it.
The Guardian newspaper later asked the Department of Health whether it was ‘imposing’ or ‘introducing’ the contract, and it confirmed the latter.
O...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Members elected to BMA council
Seventeen doctors and a medical student have been elected to BMA council.
About half of the seats for the council’s voting members were contested at the recent election.
The full list of those elected is: Dominic Aubrey-Jones, Philip Banfield, Rob Barnett, Andrew Collier, Peter Curry, Tom Dolphin, Helen Fidler, Clare Gerada, Sundeep Singh Grewal, Peter Holden, Louise Irvine, Hamed Nadeem Khan, Johann Malawana, Chaand Nagpaul, Kevin O’Kane, Clive Peedell, Wendy Savage, Stephen Watkins.
There will be further coverage of the council and its new and re-elected members in the near future.
(Source: BMA News)
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Junior doctors lead demonstrations against imposition
Hundreds of junior doctors, health professionals and members of the public marched in Leeds last Saturday in a show of opposition to the Government’s plans to impose a new junior doctor contract.
East Yorkshire ST3 in emergency medicine Amjad Sami was one of those attending on the day.
He said some 3,000 consultants, junior doctors, medical students and nurses attended, along with many members of the public.
He added: ‘It was heart-warming to see that so many people care about the NHS, take on board the challenges that face the workforce and want to support junior doctors in this dispute. Everyone just ...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Pressure mounts on Jeremy Hunt
Pressure is growing on health secretary Jeremy Hunt, pictured, to shelve plans to force through the junior doctors’ contract, with leading clinicians and experts revealing a looming crisis of morale and recruitment in the country’s hospitals.
Senior NHS staff say the contract — described as anything from ‘highly challenging’ to a ‘disaster’ — should not be forced on doctors and has already led to a huge list of vacant training places.
Medical directors and other leading doctors have called for the Government to return to talks immediately, raising concerns about the NHS losin...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
GPs call for fair share of funding
The BMA has launched an action plan to help general practice cope with ever-increasing demand and shrinking resources.
The report, Responsive, safe and sustainable: our urgent prescription for general practice, calls for the Government, NHS England and clinical commissioning groups to provide fair and sustainable funding, lower workloads, an expanded workforce and a reduced role for the CQC (Care Quality Commission).
It says primary care should have 11 per cent of NHS spending, returning it to the level it received at the end of the last decade.
BMA GPs committee chair Chaand Nagpaul, pictured, said: ‘GPs across the ...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
BMA urges health secretary to end strike action
The BMA has given health secretary Jeremy Hunt the chance to end next week’s planned strike action if he drops the threat of imposition.
In a letter sent to Mr Hunt on Tuesday, BMA junior doctors committee chair Johann Malawana urges Mr Hunt to ‘make the right decision for patients, doctors and the long-term future of the NHS’.
Mr Hunt announced his decision to impose the contract, in which doctors have no confidence, in February and junior doctors have now felt forced to take to the picket lines four times. Further industrial action, this time a full withdrawal of service by junior doctors in England, is...
Source: BMA News - April 19, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Rescue bid for quality of care
This report is not ideology out of the blue. Members are particularly concerned about problems occurring as a result of privatisation in their local areas – in fact, a BMA survey revealed that more than two-thirds said they were uncomfortable with the independent sector being involved in NHS work.
Just ask Sussex GP Brian Goss, who has seen the potential destabilisation of services that can result from contracts being put out to tender.
Dr Goss watched as an ineffective musculoskeletal triage system was put in place in the county in 2013, delaying the point at which the clock started ticking for patients to have to s...
Source: BMA News - April 18, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
Royal college leader condemns contract imposition
A royal college president has criticised health secretary Jeremy Hunt, pictured, over the ‘ill-conceived’ and ’non-negotiated’ junior doctors contract, and says staff ‘deserve to be valued’.
After a meeting with Mr Hunt on Thursday, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Neena Modi, said she was ‘dismayed’ by the crisis in the NHS and believes the imposition of the junior doctors contract, in which doctors have no confidence, has alienated the very people on whom the ‘future of the NHS depends’.
Professor Modi called for the health secreta...
Source: BMA News - April 18, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
BMA report calls for safeguards against fragmented NHS
The independent sector should be subject to the same robust standards as NHS providers and managers must be wary of the health service becoming fragmented, a BMA report says.
The association’s first report on privatisation in the health service is published today and calls for Government and health bosses to implement a series of recommendations aimed at protecting the NHS from being destabilised.
It also urges commissioners and health chiefs to consider the possible negative effects of privatisation on training and recruitment and says the taxpayer must not be saddled with the costly legacy of private firms leaving ...
Source: BMA News - April 15, 2016 Category: UK Health Source Type: news
