Our fight not with patients: BMA (From Worcester News)

Our fight not with patients: BMA

7:56am Thursday 21st June 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Doctors taking industrial action do not want to do anything to jeopardise their relationship with patients, the British Medical Association (BMA) has said.

BMA chairman of council Dr Hamish Meldrum said that doctors' fight is not with patients but with the Government.

But thousands of routine appointments and non-urgent operations will be cancelled today as doctors take industrial action for the first time in 37 years in protest over the Government's controversial pension reforms.

Mr Meldrum said he hoped that after today's day of action the union could reopen negotiations with the Government, adding that "nobody wants a repeat of this".

He told ITV's Daybreak: "I hope (the action) is not pointless and futile because we are very anxious to seek a resolution to this dispute and if this helps to highlight the problem and to get to that resolution then I hope it will have some point to it.

"Nobody is happy about taking any sort of action that impacts adversely on patients. There has been a lot of soul-searching at the BMA but we have to represent our members' views and nearly three-quarters of those who voted wanted to take this sort of action because of what was happening to their pensions.

"Nobody likes taking anything that will inconvenience patients and I know a lot of doctors who have taken this step very unwillingly. Of course doctors are not on strike today - all doctors are at their place of work, they will be seeing anybody who is urgent or who needs to be seen. It is not a strike in the normal sense.

"The nature of the work that doctors do, it is very difficult to do anything that won't have some impact on patients. We doctors have enjoyed a good relationship, high trust, with their patients and we don't want to do anything to get rid of that, but what we feel we've had is lack of trust from the Government.

"We negotiated a deal on pensions four years ago that meant that doctors would work longer, they would pay more and that they would take the risk of any future increase or impact of people living longer on the pension scheme and the Government has walked away from that deal. I hope that after today we can sit down and we can talk. Nobody wants more of this, nobody wants a repeat of this. I'm not out to inconvenience patients because of this. Our fight is not with patients it is with the Government."

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley urged doctors not to participate in the "pointless" strike, warning them it would achieve nothing. "I know doctors don't want to go on strike. I hope they don't," Mr Lansley said on ITV1's Daybreak. "I think if they have an argument and they're angry, they're angry with the Government and that's our job to represent the taxpayer and the public interest, and maybe we will have that argument. But I can't see why anybody thinks there is any benefit in penalising patients. It won't serve any purpose whatsoever."