THE BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) on Wednesday morning narrowly voted against part five of motion 269, which ‘demands that the government must permit co-payment for treatment in the UK health service’.
Co-payments would allow patients to ‘top-up’ their NHS care by paying for additional treatments themselves.
The motion from Northern Ireland was moved by Steve Austin and was followed by a long and chaotic debate.
John Chisholm, Gordon Matthews, David Wrede from Doctors For Reform, and Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the CCSC (Central Consultants and Specialists Committee) all spoke for the motion.
Jackie Davis, Kevin O’Kane, Mark Porter, the vice-chairman of CCSC, Steve Watkins and Keilash Chand spoke against.
Jackie Davis said that ‘this is a defining moment for the NHS.
‘Co-payments are an import from the American health industry.
‘They overturn a basic principle of the NHS – that of equitable treatment independent of ability to pay.
‘If we vote for co-payment we will be voting for NHS charges, because once we concede the principle, we cannot dictate where it will stop.’
Kevin O’Kane said that opening the door for co-payment would herald the end of the NHS and the advent of an insurance-based system.
Keilash Chand said: ‘If we pass this motion we will send a signal that private funding is acceptable to the BMA.
‘Top-ups would favour the wealthy and create a two-tier NHS with preferential treatment for those who could afford it.’
Mark Porter said that co-payments would ‘lever open the NHS for private charges . . . we have to ask who benefits: NICE and the drug companies, not patients, not the NHS, not the BMA.’
Motion 269 was split into six parts. Four and five were not passed.
Part five demanded the government must permit co-payments.
It was lost by one per cent of the vote.
However, parts seven and eight of a rider motion, moved by Mark Porter, from West Midlands Regional Council, were overwhelmingly passed.
These said that the meeting ‘(7) remains adamant that the introduction of such co-payments must not be a route to extend NHS user charges;
‘(8) requires that any co-payments be introduced only after a mechanism is devised to prevent the extension of NHS user charges.’
