The decisive vote followed a speech by BMA chairman Dr Hamish Meldrum who urged delegates not to throw out the concessions and improvements to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s original Health and Social Care Bill that had been so painstakingly achieved.Nevertheless, a majority voted for the BMA to call for the whole bill to be withdrawn.
Dr Meldrum had argued against the BMA calling for the Bill to be scrapped and said many sensible, desirable improvements on the original proposals had been secured.He told the conference that the NHS is facing the biggest financial challenges that have ever confronted it – the worst in its 63-year history.
Commenting on the amended and reformed proposals he said: “There is a huge difference between adapt and change and slash and burn, between carefully planned reorganisations and knee-jerk closures and redundancies”, he told the annual conference.“Doctors are not afraid of competition – in fact, they thrive on it. They want to know they are working as well, if not better than their colleagues and they need fair, effective and evidence-based data on health outcomes to provide them with that information.
“But that is quite different from the unfettered, free market of the industrial world, because the NHS must never be like that – you only have to look across the Atlantic to see why, and why we will continue to resist all attempts to make it like that.”The Department of Health said it was disappointed by the BMA vote “because only a few weeks ago [they] said there was much in our response to the listening exercise that addressed their concerns, and that many of the principles outlined reflected changes they had called for.
“The bill has changed substantially since the BMA first voted to oppose Government policy. Our plans have been greatly strengthened in order to improve care for patients and safeguard the future of the NHS.”Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said the Government had repeatedly “misjudged and mishandled its plans for the biggest reorganisation in the history of the NHS”.
“The last year has been a wasted year for the NHS, characterised by Government chaos, confusion and incompetence. David Cameron’s ‘reorganisation’ of his NHS reorganisation following the ‘pause’ was a political fix, not a proper plan for improving patient care or for a better more efficient NHS”, said Mr Healey.
