GPs at the BMA Local Medical Committees annual conference in London yesterday debated motions in relation to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his policies.
They voted for motion 801 that ‘GPs are the patient’s champions’ and that ‘NHS staff are working harder than ever before’.
801 added that government targets and demands ‘are getting in the way of patient care’.
Doctors threw out motion 802 that suggested that GPs should take back responsibility for out-of-hours provision. However, they stipulated that GP negotiators can agree safe minimum funding, that private providers cannot be involved, and that NHS 111 funding is transferred to GPs out-of-hours provision, which should be run and organised locally.
Motion 803 stated that ‘this conference has no confidence’ in Health Secretary Hunt.
In a joint, fast and furious debate on all three motions, doctor after doctor, speaking from the floor, said there is no way they would take back responsibility for out-of-hours care.
Many of them expressed their opposition to Jeremy Hunt and his policies.
One doctor said: ‘Andrew Lansley was imposed on us and his Health and Social Care Act. Jeremy Hunt was imposed and he’s another disaster.’
Sussex LMC chair Russell Brown said: ‘94% of my constituents want nothing to do with out-of-hours provision.’
Doctor David Rigley said Hunt was ‘the worst health secretary I have met’. A female doctor said: ‘We hear many times we should be talking to this government. Where is the evidence that talking to this mob is going to make any difference. Where’s the money, where’s the funding? Do not trust this man.’
A Bedfordshire GP said the Secretary of State ‘needs to know how unhappy we are. He finds it easy to blame us for the problems in A&E.’
A Nottingham GP said: ‘It’s time to call for the head of Jeremy Hunt. We have been shafted by this government like we have never been shafted before.’
Chairman Buckman opposed 803 saying that he did not want to personalise the issue. Conference went to an electronic vote on 803. The motion of no confidence in Hunt was lost by 69 votes for, and 104 against.
