Junior doctors employed by a community interest company (CIC) in Plymouth have been told they do not have the right to be balloted or participate in Industrial Action – even if they are BMA members. Follow the e mails and meeting minutes below.

Dear all

Further to the LNC meeting that was held this week to discuss the Industrial Action (IA) for junior doctors it was agreed that I would write out to you on behalf of Steve Waite and the Board to give an overview of the BMA advice and agreement that was reached with LNC members.

Due to PCH being a non NHS employer (albeit the medical staff are employed on national terms and conditions) the trainees were not entitled to either ballot nor take part in the IA during December. I have attached a copy of the notes taken at the LNC meeting along with the e-mail that has been sent to PCH trainees on Wednesday.

Those trainees employed by Devon Docs and Plymouth Hospitals are entitled to strike and in view of this I have asked medical staffing to provide an overview of the key areas that will be affected. Teresa has detailed what

[…..] Read More

Jeremy Hunt Can Avoid a Strike – But Will He?

The British Medical Association’s offer of ACAS mediated negotiations with Jeremy Hunt and NHS Employers to try to solve the junior doctor dispute was met with predictable reluctance by Hunt. The health secretary was doubtless smarting from the overwhelming vote of junior doctors to strike (98% of a 76% turnout said yes), but also because so many consultants and GPs have publically expressed their support. Hunt’s charge that doctors must resist the lure of the radicals seems all the more absurd given the medical profession has never been more united around its 53,000 junior staff (many of whom are far from ‘junior’).

Hunt has not ruled out using ACAS at some later stage, but by refusing the offer immediately he knows he is allowing the strike action to go ahead, perhaps hopeful of the damage it might do to the reputation of junior doctors and the BMA. Theoretically, patients requiring urgent care would not be harmed as that care should safely be provided by consultants and non-consultant grade specialists, but some patients may suffer from delayed diagnosis due to the cancellation of out-patient clinics and delayed surgery as non-emergency services

[…..] Read More

Junior doctors speak up

As health secretary Jeremy Hunt and the BMA prepare to do battle over the junior doctors’ contract, spare a thought for the doctors themselves, many of whom aren’t even members of the BMA. Many have shown great courage to speak up in person, not anonymously. They are also numerate and understand the scientific method, two qualities that appear to have eluded the health secretary of late. Jeremy Hunt is relying on his manifesto mandate (i.e. the votes of 24% of the eligible electorate) to enforce whatever he means by a seven day NHS, supported by a paper in the British Medical Journal in September entitled ‘Increased mortality associated with weekend hospital admission: a case for expanded seven day services?’ Note the question mark.

The article reported an analysis of 30 day mortality after admission to hospitals in England and found an excess number of deaths among patients admitted at weekends. It found that 11?000 more people die each year within 30 days of admission to hospital on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday than on other days of the week. So not just weekends, but Fridays and Mondays too. It was not able to determine why

[…..] Read More

Hunt’s Choice

In the 31 years since MD first set foot on an NHS ward, there have been a dozen major political disruptions to the NHS. Margaret Thatcher sewed the seeds for an NHS market by splitting it into purchases and providers. Tony Blair’s Labour trebled the budget but also insisted on the ‘constructive discomfort’ of competition. Alas, billions were squandered in paying private providers over the odds ‘to encourage new entrants into the market’ and on PFI deals that are still crippling hospitals today.

The current government’s big idea is to use the global financial crisis as an excuse to starve the NHS and social care system of funding, in the hope that some miraculous better value innovations will rise from the ashes, with the wind of private sector partners beneath their wings. Wary of resistance to privatization in the NHS, the government is using the Trojan horses of ‘integration and collaboration’ to create accountable care organisations (ACOs), which will have budgets for (almost) the entire health and social care of a fixed population, and the entire staffing and administration costs. All the providers within an ACO have to grow up and collaborate fast to ensure patients are

[…..] Read More

Very honest letter from Chair and Accountable Officer of Wiltshire CCG. This situation is being replicated throughout the NHS. Liverpool council will run out of money for adult social care in 2 years if the situation doesn’t change

Wiltshire CCG Dire Financial Situation