Thousands of doctors 'will defy' the order to walk out

Thousands of doctors 'will defy' the order to walk out

• Strike on June 21 â€" the first industrial action by the profession in almost 40 years â€" has been widely condemned by politicians and the public
• Union has proposed that only emergency or urgent cases are seen and it is thought more than 150,000 operations, tests and hospital appointments will be cancelled and 1.2million GP appointments postponed
  

By Sophie Borland

PUBLISHED: 20:03 EST, 31 May 2012 | UPDATED: 02:20 EST, 1 June 2012

Thousands of doctors are expected to ignore orders from their union to stage a 24-hour strike.

Many GPs and specialists admitted yesterday they were deeply opposed to the British Medical Association protest over changes to pensions and plan to work as normal. The rebels include BMA members.

The strike on Thursday June 21 â€" the first industrial action by the profession in almost 40 years â€" has been widely condemned by politicians and the public.

Opposition: Many doctors are deeply against the protest over changes to pensions and plan to work as normal

The union has proposed that only emergency or urgent cases are seen and it is thought more than 150,000 operations, tests and hospital appointments will be cancelled and 1.2million GP appointments postponed.

But yesterday many doctors vowed to carry on working as normal. Even those who voted in favour of the strike were said to be regretful.

Dr Vincent Argent, 64, an AE specialist at Western Sussex Hospital in Worthing, said: ‘The majority of my colleagues are very apprehensive. They are very worried they will lose public confidence. I think people will carry on working, including those who voted yes.

‘Around 50 per cent of doctors’ work is emergency or urgent work anyway. Many younger doctors will not know what is classified as urgent so will treat patients regardless.’

Dr James Kingsland, a GP in the Wirral, Merseyside, said his surgery would be running as normal.

‘I’ve got no strong feelings on this issue other than I’ve got patients to see. I don’t think it’s the right way of tackling the issue.’

Professor Anthony Narula, an ear, nose and throat surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, London, was another who said he had no intention of taking part.

‘I don’t know how it will play out but surgeons aren’t very good at not working. They are a funny breed. The majority of my work is elective, or non-urgent, but I intend to carry it out on that day as usual.’

Other high-profile opponents include Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, who said the strike was ‘unreasonable’. 

Doctors’ pay and pensions are by far the most generous in the public sector. Under proposed changes, a doctor now aged 40 would have to work until 62 to get the same pension as one retiring today at 60. And a junior doctor aged 24 would have to work until they were 67.

The BMA’s announcement followed a ballot of 104,544 eligible union members, of whom 52,250 responded and 84 per cent were in favour of industrial action.

But as well as those who didn’t vote, at least another 50,000 doct ors do not belong to the union, meaning more than two thirds of doctors did not say yes to a strike.

The BMA insists the action is the only way its voice can be heard by the Government.
n Admin staff, cleaners and caterers who work for the BMA are planning to strike over a below-inflation pay rise. The workers â€" who belong to the GMB union â€" have accused the BMA of being ‘hypocrites’. 

DR ANGUS ROSS: WHY I, AS A GP, BELIEVE THIS STRIKE IS WRONG

'The strike is wrong': Dr Angus Ross qualified as a hospital doctor in 1994 and then as a GP in 2002

My father was a GP. A country doctor, working in County Durham, he was on call at all hours, often working through the night and at weekends. As a boy, I used to sit on the stairs at night when he was on call, waiting for him to come home so that I could find out what had happened to his patients.

His dedication was inspiring and influenced my decision to follow him into medicine. I qualified as a hospital doctor in 1994 and then as a GP in 2002.

Yesterday, the British Medical Association defended the vote by its members to go on strike. It said the decision for doctors to refuse all non-urgent care had not been ‘taken lightly’.

As a local GP with a busy practice in Cumbria, I firmly believe that this strike is wrong and as a member of the BMA, I voted against it. Furthermore, I am convinced that doctors will look back on this pivotal moment in years to come as a grievous error of judgement.

This is a strike motivated purely by self-interest. Little thought has been given to the safety or welfare of patients.

Perversely, the strike comes at a time when doctors have seen huge improvements in their working conditions. Soon after I qualified in 2002, radical changes were made to doctors’ working hours, with 24-hour responsibility removed from local GPs.

Today, I am responsible for my patients in the village of Kirkoswald from 8am to 6.30pm. In the evenings, at night and in the early morning, my 2,300 patients are looked after by the local out-of-hours team.

As working hours have fallen, though, GPs’ salaries have risen. An average salary is £110,000.
Our pension arrangements were set in 2008, but since then the state of the economy has meant that changes are necessary. The proposed reforms will see doctors pay up to 14.5 per cent of their salaries in pension contributions â€" up from the current 8.5 per cent â€" and they will be expected to retire later than 60. 

But disappointment over pensions is not a matter worthy of strike action. We doctors should thank our lucky stars that we remain in a profession with excellent job security, good pay, and, by the standards of the private sector, gold-plated pensions.

I am not more principled than any other doctor. I simply cannot see the justification for this action. Nor would my patients â€" with their own worries about mortgages, redundancies and squeezed pensions â€" muster much sympathy if I closed the surgery for the day.

Condemned: The strike on June 21 - the first industrial action by the profession in almost 40 years - has been widely criticised by politicians and the public

When doctors last went on strike in 1975, they did so with good reason. Then, action was taken over working hours, at a time when medics routinely worked 120 hours a week. There were very real concerns over the safety of patients â€" of course, mistakes are made when doctors are overworked.
In any case, the impact of the planned strike will be entirely negative as the public worry about the risk to patients.

The BMA says doctors will be in their usual workplace on the day of the strike, but ‘providing urgent and emergency care only’. But what constitutes an emergency? I don’t know until I have examined someone.

Twenty four hours can mean the difference between life and death. I have lost count of the number of times that someone has come in for a routine appointment and I have privately thought ‘thank God they came in today’, before sending them to hospital for immediate admission.

It might be a gentleman who has a pain in his chest, and thinks he pulled a muscle, but is actually having a heart attack. Or an elderly lady suffering dizziness who turns out to have an undiagnosed and life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm. Children often show vague symptoms that can be caused by something serious: the child with a bit of a temperature who is ‘not quite right’, and turns out to have deadly meningitis.

A patient rarely knows when they are an emergency case â€" they need a doctor to recognise the urgency of immediate treatment. I am in no doubt that there will be patients whose health is compromised by these strikes.

There will also be huge patient inconvenience. Let us not pretend otherwise: the point of a strike is to create discomfort.

GP surgeries will see a knock-on effect beyond the strike day. Busy practices will lose a day of appointments thus creating several days if not weeks of delay and disruption.

Then there are the more far-reaching consequences. I fear these strikes will undermine doctors’ right to influence medical policy for ever.

Doctors have traditionally lectured politicians about patient care. Until now, they have been fortunate to be listened to. However, I fear that in years to come this disastrous decision to strike will be seen as the moment when the medical profession’s ability to influence political decisions was irrevocably diminished.

As for me, it will be business as usual on strike day. I became a doctor because I believed I could help people and save lives. I didn’t go into medicine for the pension.

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