The BMA Consul-tants Conference yesterday heard a call for trade union action to defend the NHS from cuts and privatisation.
Moving Motion 138 from North-East London Regional Consultants and Specialists Committee, Anna Athow said: ‘This government has gone to war on the NHS and on our District General Hospitals.
‘They decided in 2000 with the NHS Plan that clinical services would be privatised and they have steadily introduced all the infrastructure for a marketised system.
‘They have railroaded through the most draconian cuts, axing scores of community hospitals, closing wards and theatres, getting rid of thousands of nurses and NHS staff.
‘Now they are into the final push with the drive to close up to 60 District General Hospitals, dispensing with over 10,000 juniors and threatening consultant posts.’
She added: ‘The BMA has to stop going along with the government’s reforms and reconfiguration programme and start to actively oppose these measures.
‘It has to draw a line in the sand and say, “No, our consultant-led hospital services must be defended and our District General Hospitals must stay open, with their A&Es, maternity and paediatrics and all departments.
‘We need action. We should start with an official day of action.
‘We should call other health unions to come out with us through NHS Together and for all TUC-affiliated unions to take industrial action on that day.
‘Every single person in this country wants the NHS to be saved as a properly-funded public service.
‘There would be tremendous support for action. I move.’
Opposing the motion, first-time speaker Francis Lascombe, from the South West, said: ‘The public perhaps correctly are opposed to what’s happening in the NHS.
‘I would suggest trade union action would marginalise the BMA in the corridors of power.’
He said: ‘Remember the government was elected’, and called for constructive dialogue with it.
He said: ‘We don’t want to create an image like Longbridge in the 1970s.’
Speaking for the motion, Clive Peedell said: ‘The NHS is facing its greatest crisis.
‘I got to speak at the Remedy UK march in front of 12,000 people.
‘On that day, I saw a load of people coming together. I felt the power of solidarity.
‘The BMA leadership has failed.
‘Fifteen thousand joined Remedy and Johnson has resigned.’
He said that with the militant speech of Consultants Committee chairman Jonathan Fielden, ‘the tide is turning.’
He said: ‘Brown and Co. have let us down.
‘We need our health service. You lead and we will follow.
‘We want the BMA to be strong and powerful. We want to stop a lot of these ridiculous health care policies.’
Trevor Pickersgill of Cardiff opposed the motion, saying: ‘Trade union action is needed to defend the NHS.
‘We are a trade union. These guys here,’ he said, indicating the top table, ‘are doing what the motion supports.
‘They are taking action, they are lobbying government.
‘What we do not need is a policy to take the BMA into the High Court for calling illegal trade union action.’
Consultants Committee chairman Fielden said: ‘We are trying to act. We are working with Remedy, but we have to use our power effectively.’
Athow in her reply stated: ‘The government is smashing up the NHS and the future of a generation of doctors – we have to have official action.’
The motion was lost on a show of hands with a substantial minority voting for action.
