Patients before politics

This Tuesday, junior doctors are scheduled to go on strike. Jeremy Hunt tells this newspaper about the potential impact. The action will come at one of the busiest times of year, and the withdrawal of elective care will cause “enormous frustration” for patients. But it is the third strike planned for next month that really troubles the Health Secretary, for it will be a full walkout. “That is basically saying that you won’t be there for your patients even in life-threatening situations.” Pressure is now mounting for resolution through calm dialogue.

Is the British Medical Association (BMA) prepared to talk reasonably, however? It represents a hard-working body of professionals who have raised legitimate concerns about the Government’s proposals. But it is unclear why many of the sticking points, for instance around hospitals no longer being penalised financially for overworking their staff, cannot be resolved in discussions. Some will infer that the BMA has decided that it wants a strike just so that it can flex its industrial muscle in public.

That hypothesis is supported by the political biographies of those at the top of the BMA. Dr Kailash Chand, one of two members of the BMA’s council to declare themselves Labour members, infamously likened Conservative policies to Nazi propaganda. And a senior BMA member who backed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign wrote that victory in this strike would produce “the first real crack” in the austerity agenda. This ideological view of the health-care debate is tired, unhelpful and potentially dangerous. The BMA should put the interests of patients first and call off the strike.