DOCTORS at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Harrogate yesterday voted overwhelmingly in opposition to NHS privatisation and cuts.
The conference was opened by BMA chair Mark Porter who told delegates: ‘If they want the argument, then we’re up for it.
He added: ‘We’ll show the public the chronic lack of investment in Emergency Medicine, in general Practice, in Public Health, in Mental Health, across the NHS.
‘Who should the public blame? The people who work in the NHS, or the government that holds the purse strings?
‘And with the General Election just 10 months away, we could be fighting like this every day.’
Conference Motion 22 from Lewisham Division, was moved by Doctor Louise Irvine. It stated 1) ‘This Meeting deplores the actions of the Secretary of State for Health in trying to legislate so that future Trust Special Administrators can make binding recommendations for Trusts outside those for which they were appointed.
2) ‘This Meeting urges the BMA to continue to lobby against non-clinically driven service reconfiguration plans.’
Irvine told the ARM: ‘In May Parliament passed Clause 119 in response to Lewisham being able to prevent the unsustainable provider regime.
‘We won in the courts, but the government pushed through binding legislation to enable the fast tracking of hospital reconfigurations including closures.
‘The dangerous nature of this legislation is that it allows closures to be pushed through for purely financial considerations’.
She concluded: ‘We must defend our vital NHS services against financially driven reconfigurations and closures.’
Doctor Helena McKeown, supporting the resolution said: ‘Where I work we face the closure of a respite home. We have to stop these closures.’
Consultant Keith Brent in opposing the motion said that there does need to be a mechanism if the service is collapsing to keep it afloat.
In reply to the debate on Motion 22 Irvine said: ‘We have no problems with reconfigurations that improve care. The government will never say they are making closures for non-clinical reasons, but we can show that these closures are financially driven.
Both parts of Motion 22 were passed overwhelmingly.
Delegates went on to vote unanimously for motion 23 from the Agenda Committee, proposed by Doctor Jacky Davis of Islington Division.
This stated ‘This Meeting calls for the restoration of the statutory responsibilities of the Secretry of State for Health to secure and provide universal health care.’
Davis said: ‘The Health and Social Care Act undermines Democratic Accountability for the NHS.
‘The Secretary of State is now a bystander. In the face of cuts he can blame everyone else but himself.
‘We are seeing the demolition of the NHS by the Coalition.
‘This government is a disgrace and part of that disgrace is the cynical dismantling of the NHS.’
Speaking for the motion Professor Allison Pollock claimed: ‘The “Act” was an abdication act. We need to restore the duty for health care to the Secretary of State and stop marketisation If we don’t we are going the American way. We are already seeing the denial of care.’
In the afternoon the conference voted overwhelmingly against NHS charging.
