THE British Medical Association yesterday rebutted right wing attacks on its ‘derogation’ system, whereby the NHS can ask for resident doctors, who are taking part in the current five-day strike which is set to conclude tomorrow, to go into work where patient safety is at risk.
As of Sunday evening, 18 requests by hospitals for derogations had been rejected by the BMA, with nine accepted.
The BMA said that while it is ready to respond to emergencies, poor planning and the push to continue non-urgent care in this strike has stretched staffing too much.
NHS England attacked the BMA yesterday, claiming a ‘remote BMA panel’ is ‘second-guessing doctors on the ground who are trying to look after patients.’
NHS England accused the BMA of sitting on some requests for hours, with some rejected because hospitals would not pay striking doctors premium rates to come back in.
A central committee of senior BMA doctors makes decisions on each derogation request.
Among the requests agreed was for a doctor to work at Nottingham City Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit over the weekend.
Three BMA members were also brought in to work a night shift at the Northern General in Sheffield.
But the BMA rejected a request by Milton Keynes Hospital for a doctor to carry out prostate cancer checks.
A BMA spokesman said: ‘It remains our position that this agreement will be available for the NHS to rely upon should a safety-critical, urgent event occur.
‘That process is there day and night throughout industrial action, and we remain ready to respond to any emergency requests.
‘However, we need to be clear that the purpose of this agreement is not to facilitate the continued delivery of non-urgent care at the same time as senior doctors are covering for residents taking industrial action, as trusts simply do not have enough senior doctors to do that safely.’
The five-day strike by resident doctors is due to run until 07:00 BST tomorrow.