HUNT SAVAGES STRIKE BULLIES
THE prospect of patients dying as a result of the doctors strike cannot be ruled out, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned last night.
And if they fail to uphold their duty to keep patients safe, they deserve to be struck off as doctors. That was the defiant message from Mr Hunt in his first major interview after members of the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly in favour of the first-ever all-out doctors strike in Britain.
Speaking to The Mail on Sunday in his Health Department study opposite Downing Street, Mr Hunt:
Vowed he will not ‘crumble’ in his bid to force more doctors to work weekends;
Compared the dangers of too few doctors at weekends to flying in an aircraft without a co-pilot;
Lambasted ‘bullying’ pro-strike doctors who have used social media to insult medics opposed to it; and
Hit back at doctors strike cheerleader Anna Warrington, who accused him of plotting to sell off the NHS.
When David Cameron made Mr Hunt Health Secretary three years ago, it wasn’t to pick a fight with doctors. He was meant to use his lean, clean-cut, bedside manner to soothe the open political wounds left by lumpen predecessor Andrew Lansley’s bungled NHS reforms.
Few expected the Tories’ sevenday NHS Election manifesto man- date to spark a new winter of discontent. And few i n No 10 expected the BMA to get its own 98 per cent strike mandate to sabotage it. It has led to rumours that Mr Cameron is ‘jittery’ about the strike.
‘Quite the reverse,’ says Mr Hunt. ‘The Prime Minister and Chancellor are totally supportive.’ No one doubts his charm, but does he have the cojones to hold out against 50,000 determined doctors? ‘I have never crumbled in any of the challenges I have faced as Health Secretary,’ he replies, consciously jutting his chiselled jaw. ‘There’s no point doing this job if you aren’t up for the fight.’
Mr Hunt says BMA junior doctors leader Johann Malawana and a hard core of ‘militant’ supporters are trying to turn the strike into ‘an ideological dispute when the truth is it is about improving patient care at weekends, nothing more, nothing less’.
Warming to his theme, he singles out Warrington who accused him of
using the dispute to ‘privatise the NHS’.
‘What utter nonsense,’ he splutters. ‘Several independent studies show the mortality rate at weekends is too high.
‘If you were an airline pilot and turned up at Heathrow on a Sunday and they said, “Sorry, because it’s the weekend you don’t get a co-pilot today”, you wouldn’t find that acceptable.
‘But that’s what we ask our doctors to do. There is a perverse incentive to work unsafe hours. We need to stop that.’
For all his well-modulated polish, Hunt has an uphill battle to win public support.
‘People told me when I got this job that the BMA is the toughest union of the lot to negotiate with because they can always play the doctor’s versus politician’s card.
‘The BMA are on the wrong side of debate just as they were when the NHS was set up. Nye Bevan said there is no Health Secretary the BMA haven’t accused of being intemperate and obstinate.’
(He omits to mention the small matter of diehard Tory opposition to the creation of the NHS.)
Hunt, 49, has gone out of his way to burnish his credentials as a Tory in whose hands the NHS is safe by making regular visits incognito to the hospital ‘frontline’, as he calls it, working as a porter or ambulance man. ‘I’ve washed commodes in Harrogate Hospital, done tea rounds in Worthing Hospital, taken blood pressure at Royal Surrey, washed beds in Watford A&E, done ward rounds in the Salford Royal, witnessed brain surgery in UCL,’ he says with the earnest enthusiasm of the Charterhouse School head boy he once was.
Now the admiral’s son is in the front line of a potentially lethal battle with doctors.
Will people die as a result of the strike?
‘I really hope not. We already have too many avoidable deaths in the NHS, partly because of the weekend effect. We are going to bust a gut to get proper emergency cover in every hospital – but I can’t promise we will get there. It is inevitable patient care will suffer.’
I press again: will the strike lead to deaths? ‘You can’t rule it out. It is a very high-risk period for patients when doctors withdraw from providing emergency cover.’
In that event, will striking doctors be struck off if they are to blame for fatalities?
‘That is a matter for the General Medical Council not me, but the GMC guidance is very clear: doctors should satisfy themselves individually’ – pausing over the word ‘individually’ to leave no doubt as to his stern warning – ‘that there are safe arrangements in place for patients if they withdraw labour.’
And should the GMC strike them off if that was not ‘individually’ the case?
‘The GMC are very clear about doctors’ responsibilities and every doctor will want to act within the guidelines.’
It is as close to saying ‘yes’ as he dares.
Mr Hunt reserves special venom for junior doctors who have used the internet to abuse colleagues who question the strike. ‘One of the most shocking tactics some of those in BMA have used is the persecution of people in social media who have put their head above the parapet and said the BMA’s argument should be with the Government not patients.
‘Doctors should not endure these levels of bullying and harassment, it is totally wrong.’
Mr Hunt believes that public support for the strike will fade when people realise that in return for losing overtime for working weekends, they are getting the kind of bumper payrise most workers can only dream of. ‘Which other part of the public sector has seen its basic pay go up by 11 per cent at a time of austerity?’ he pleads.
‘The public will find it extraordinary doctors have chosen to strike in those circumstances.’
For his own sake, ambitious Mr Hunt had better be right. If he isn’t, he can kiss goodbye to his hopes of succeeding Cameron. ‘I’ve had plenty of ups and downs in my political career,’ he smiles, avoiding the bait.
‘It’s never easy when you are in the middle of a maelstrom, but when you get through to the other side, if you’ve made the NHS better and safer, history will judge you to have done the right thing.’