Dr Mark Porter, Chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), has warned that the NHS is struggling to cope with heavy financial pressure, mostly imposed by government policy, and with the aftermath of the Mid-Staffs scandal. Although much of the focus tends to be on how patient services are suffering, staff have paid a heavy price for the crisis too: pay freezes mean that individual workers have experienced pay cuts for several years.
Costs are rising beyond the level which can be met by efficiency savings. If there is to be an alternative to cutting patient services, someone will have to find a radical solution to the crisis. Staff generally feel there is a lack of direction on the part of management and it may be that doctors are best placed to find a new way of thinking, along with input from other NHS staff, if their input is accepted from managers.
Dr Porter pointed out that doctors had already begun to look at how to bring weekend care up to the standard of weekday care, even before the Government began highlighting this issue. From the start of the new year, the BMA would be working for clinicians to have more of a say in the NHS and its future.
•Dr Porter has also reported that a BMA survey of its members resulted in two thirds of GPs coming out against charging patients to use A&E. GPs were particularly concerned that these charges would deter those who genuinely needed urgent medical help rather than deterring those who were not genuine patients. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, Chair of the BMA’s GP committee, called for better education of patients to help them choose when to go to A&E and when to go to their GP or companion services.
•The BMA has also spoken out against government plans to charge visitors who fall ill and use the NHS while they are in the UK. The organisation fears this will increase bureaucracy as well as confusing patients. Dr Porter explained, “… the Government’s current proposals […] are likely to create a complex patchwork of charging and access entitlements […] Not only will this arrangement cause confusion amongst patients, it will also require GPs and hospital doctors to spend more time on the paperwork and bureaucracy needed to regulate these charges. This could mean the system of administering the new charging system will end up actually costing more to run than it collects in revenue.” Doctors have previously pointed out that if migrants are deterred from seeking medical help by the fear of having to pay charges, there could be negative consequences for public health – hence it was more cost effective to treat all those who need to be seen.