May I introduce you to Mr Justice Wilkie. I think he’s a good bloke.
He was a High Court Judge… now retired as, Sir Alan Wilkie.
Where ever you are Sir, good luck. I hope you’re enjoying a nightly Penderyn.
He is a man who understands that the NHS exists to do the right thing for patients. More importantly, he understands the regulators of healthcare exist to do the right thing for patients and he knows doctors are supposed to ‘do no harm’ to patients.
How do I know? Well… what were you doing in 2015?
The world was a different place. The Tories won an election, the Brexit palaver started, Facebook passed a billion users, NASA found water on Mars, and…
… the junior doctors were kicking up a fuss about their new contract and were on strike.
It was the first doctor’s strike in living memory and the press had apoplexy.
The public froze, politicians ran around in circles and the General Medical Council rolled up its sleeves and decided to issue guidance to doctors. Reminding them of their responsibility to ‘do no harm to patients’.
The moral and ethical discord created by doing-no-harm and going-on-strike.
The BMA got wind of it and guess what…
… you’d never guess.
They went to the High Court in London and applied for an injunction to stop the GMC issuing their guidance.
Sinister audacity.
Can you believe it! They actually tried to stop the doctor’s regulator pointing out what doctor’s responsibilities are and that going on strike is likely to end up harming patients.
I think the BMA were worried that concerns over public safety and the subsequent impact on a Dr’s GMC registration, might put them off striking.
Enter Mr Justice Wilkie… who, at an injunction hearing, would have none of it. He sent the BMA packing, denied all their claims and put a flea in their ear by awarding costs to the GMC…
… ouch!
There’s a synopsis of events here, from the minutes of GMC Council meeting of December 2015.
It took a High Court judge to remind the BMA what doctors are for.
In the end the strike fizzled out. The health secretary imposed the contract and that was the end of it.
The truth is the strike was fairly light-touch. The consultants provided cover, (without demanding extra money), knowing if there was a disaster, public opinion would turn against the junior doctors.
Unlike… the strikes we are experiencing now. They are doing huge damage.
Damage that will surely unfold as more excess-death data emerges. We will look back and say… that’s what killed yer granny.
Waiting lists have recycled nearly a million people, pushed health systems into Opel 4, the level of alarm that says ‘this is dangerous’, we can’t cope, and driven hospital managers to the edge of sanity.
Doctors will say they are on strike for patients and the BMA will wriggle and deny the data… all of which is baloney.
Make no mistake, what is happening is dangerous. Patients are in harm’s way… doctors are injecting risk into the system and infusing an increased jeopardy into waiting.
Healthcare delayed means somewhere, someone will pay, with money to catch-up or with their life chances if they can’t.
Where is today’s General Medical Council? What happened between 2015 when they were there for patients and now, where they are nowhere to be seen.
They will say doctors have a right to strike… and they are right.
They will say their job is to make sure patients are safe… and they are not.
The GMC’s annual operational budget is £144.3 million… mostly funded by fees from doctors, who receive a 100% tax rebate on their GMC registration fees… that means the public pay… the public, the GMC exists to protect.
Doctor’s strikes are not student politics, nor a game to goad the government.
It is a doctor’s job to do no harm, as much as it is the government’s job to keep us from harm and the Regulator’s job to keep us safe…
Strikes are becoming a serious, grave and solemn risk.
Is anyone doing their job?
You be the judge.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
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