Examples from two London BMA divisions for the Special Representative Meeting to be held on March 15th
1. This meeting has no confidence in the Secretary of State for Health, Mr Andrew Lansley.
2. This meeting opposes the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill as they will be detrimental to the future of healthcare delivery in the England.
3. This meeting believes that the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill are not in the best interests of patients, the public or the wider NHS.
4. This meeting believes that the Health and Social Care Bill will end the NHS as we currently understand it, as a publicly owned and provided service.
5. This meeting believes that the Health and Social Care Bill will result in the NHS becoming a franchise rather that a coordinated public health service.
6. This meeting believes that there is no evidence to support the contention that a market system will improve the quality of care in a nationally delivered heath service.
7. This meeting believes that the vast majority of evidence demonstrates that a market system is detrimental to the delivery of an equitable, cost-effective and quality driven health service.
8. This meeting believes that price competition drives down the quality of health care and insists that the BMA should rigorously oppose the introduction of such measures into the NHS
9. This meeting believes that the NHS should remain the preferred provider of healthcare services in the UK
10. This meeting believes that the policy of ‘any willing provider’ outlined in the Health and Social Care Bill will lead to the disintegration of the NHS
11. This meeting believes that the commissioning of healthcare must involve a partnership between GPs, Public Health physicians and hospital based Consultants, if it is to succeed.
12. This meeting believes that the Health and Social Care Bill reforms are potentially so detrimental to the care of our patients, that the BMA should consider industrial action to prevent their implementation.
13. This meeting believes that the Health and Social Care Bill is designed to disguise the wholesale privatisation of the NHS under a veneer of patient choice and clinically lead commissioning
14. This meeting opposes the separation of commissioning and the provision of Post Graduate Medical Education as it’s based on unproven political dogma, rather than any sound evidence.
15. This meeting believes GP commissioning consortia are being set up to become the ‘fall guys’ for Andrew Lansley.
16. This meeting believes that cooperation and integration between social and health care will be adversely effected by competition between healthcare providers
17. This meeting believes that and the creation of a market system and subsequent fragmentation of the NHS will create significant conflicts of interest and introduce huge opportunities for corrupt practices across the health service and calls on the BMA to expose this risk to the public purse.
18. This meeting believes that Public Health services should not be reformed whilst the NHS and Local Authorities are both undergoing severe service reductions.
19. This meeting believes that the purchaser provider split has been a disaster for the NHS ever since its introduction and calls on the BMA to continues to oppose it wherever possible.
20. This meeting believes that the Health and Social Care Bill is a disaster waiting to happen and urges the BMA to publicise to the general public, the degree and nature of this threat to the NHS,
21. This meeting believes that ‘local risk pooling’ with create health care ghettos and increase health inequalities.
22. This meeting accepts that the NHS must change to respond to difficulties caused by altered patient demographics, development and costs of medical technology etc but does not believe that the Health and Social Care Bill provides the correct solutions to these problems.
23. This meeting believes that standards of Post Graduate Medical Education can not be guaranteed where healthcare is delivered by ‘any willing provider’.
24. This meeting believes that GP commissioning consortia must hold all meetings in public and that their decisions must be made known to their local population.
25. This meeting believes that the total cost of the NHS redundancy payments, due to the abolition of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health authorities (SHAs), must be made public before the next general election.
26. This meeting believes that the government has no mandate for the introduction of the changes to the NHS outlined in the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill.
27. This meeting believes that the government has no mandate for the introduction of the changes to the NHS outlined in the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill and calls for a national referendum, to coincide with the referendum on electoral reform, to confirm that the general public support its provisions, before the Bill can be enacted.
28. This meeting believes that the speed of implementing the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill will be potentially disastrous for the NHS.
29. This meeting believes that the BMA should poll its membership before the 2011 ARM, to consider the scope and scale of potential industrial action which might be required to oppose the implementation of the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill.
30. This meeting believes the public should be informed about the level of qualification of anybody delivering their healthcare.
31. This meeting believes that GP commissioning consortia should purchase services based on their patients’ medical need and not on their wants, where the latter has no supportive evidence base.
32. This meeting believes that the BMA should withdraw from any further ‘critical engagement’ with the government concerning the Health and Social Care Bill and calls on the profession to actively oppose its introduction.
33. This meeting believes that the National Commissioning Board must be appointed through an open and transparent mechanism and that any relevant person specifications and job descriptions must be in the public domain.
34. This meeting believes that the National Commissioning Board must have significant clinical representation from a variety of health care professions, including community and hospital based physicians.
35. This meeting believes that there is no place for ‘commercial confidentiality’ in a publicly funded health service.
36. This meeting believes that the terms of all financial transactions between the NHS and external contractors over the value of £250,000 should be made public.
37. This meeting believes that all GP commissioning consortia should be required to hold their meeting in public and make their accounts available to public scrutiny
38. This meeting believes that all GP commissioning consortia should have at least 1 lay member and 1 hospital based consultant on their Boards.
A Better NHS 
Spelman says that if there is one key lesson from this episode, it is that people “cherish their woodlands and forests.”
Perhaps we do our NHS too!!! One without the internal or external markets!!!
The Cockroach Catcher
I’ve worked as a nurse in the NHS for the last 22 years and have been filled with despair since the government unveiled their White Paper.
I’ve been to see my MP, written to the local paper and distributed leaflets, but it seems that the country as a whole is sleep-walking into the loss of one of the most popular and successful social institutions we as a people have ever created. Very few of my colleagues even within the service have any real idea of what the Bill entails or realise that, if passed, it really would mean the destruction of the NHS and the principal of the provision of universal care based on need.
The arguments being used by the Coalition to push their reforms are based on lies and half-truths repeated over and over again, and when ministers appear in the media they are never asked difficult questions by people who understand healthcare and believe in the NHS.
In this climate believe me when I say that your blog for me has been a voice of reason in the wilderness and an inspiration. I would like to thank you for all your hard work in defence of our NHS, and also wish you and other BMA members success at the SRM on the 15th of March.
A rush and a push and the land is ours!
Paul
Thanks very much Paul. I’ve just come from speaking to over 100 people in North London of all political persuasions and they were outraged. The NHS is political but beyond party politics. If we can find a way of explaining the changes clearly and the impact it will have on them personally, then we can make a difference, jonathon
In the PCT where I work this all seems to be a done deal and has been ever since the white paper was first published. I doubt that ministers really understand what SHAs or PCTs actually do on a day to day basis – whilst I have no problem with slimming down beaurocracy and making the NHS more efficient, putting GPS in charge of commissioning services is rather like putting an anorexic in charge of a restaurant. They may know what food is, but they don’t know what to do with it. If a GP had wanted to be a manager, why didn’t he/she get a degree in managment instead of studying medicine? Why does the govenment assume that if you know how to treat illness you can manage a huge budget, negotiate contracts, performance manage, etc ……….. Clinicians on PCT boards and working alongside PCT commissioners would be a far more sensible way to move forward. It would retain existing skills, increase clinical involvement and stop the billions which will be spent on redundancy and reorganisation costs – how much will it cost just to rebrand?
An internet petition seems to have had an effect for saving the forests. Why not an internet petition for saving the NHS? Also car stickers, newspaper adverts etc. to bring the problem to the attention of the public.
Dear Julia, there are three that I am aware of http://saveournhs.org/ and another at http://www.nhscampaign.org/current-issues-2/e-petition.html and at 38 degrees http://labs.38degrees.org.uk/wall/NHS