What the commentators said
No one should be deceived by the BMA’S claim only to be interested in patient safety, said Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. This dispute is about money on the one hand, and the machinations of a handful of left-wing BMA leaders on the other. At a recent council meeting, a leaked account records one delegate speaking of “breaking” May, and picking up “where the miners left off”. The BMA is essentially “playing politics” with patients’ lives. It’s the BMA’S stupidity I find most impressive, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. Strike action can only be effective if it has an impact on patients: and since most doctors aren’t ultimately prepared to damage the interests of patients, it is always bound to be an empty threat. The BMA’S posturing has been exposed. Indeed, this dispute turns out not really to have been about the contract at all: there has been no attempt, for example, to proffer a single concrete proposal that, if met, would now settle it. It’s really just “a loud angry protest about a very difficult job”.
No, said Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail: on some points, the doctors have a case. Hunt’s plans for a seven-day health service are “flawed and badly thought out”. Some specialities don’t require 24/7 cover. Who needs to see a dermatologist on a Sunday? Besides, many patients, it turns out, are reluctant to accept a weekend appointment when it is offered. Rather than seek to stretch the entire health service over more days, we should “prioritise the areas where people are sickest”. In the end, it all comes down to a lack of money, said Emily Crawford on her New Statesman blog. There’ll be rows like this for as long as the Government struggles to reconcile limited funds with rising bills. Hunt is already squaring up for a fight with GPS and dentists over his refusal to offer more than a 1% rise in the coming pay round. What this dispute underlines is the need for a whole “new deal” on health funding: a dedicated NHS tax, perhaps, or a pledge to spend a fixed share of GDP on health. The time for short-term fixes is long past.