11 June 2004
Hospital consultants must stand up to 'bullying' tactics from Whitehall and work only the hours for which they are paid, the British Medical Association said this week.
At its annual senior doctors' conference in London, the BMA said that only three-quarters of NHS trusts in England had implemented the new consultants' contract, eight months after doctors had voted in favour of it.
The association added that 10% of job plans offered to consultants under the new contract were unacceptable, while it was too early to say in a further 20% of cases.
In a move that marks a further deterioration in relations between the BMA and the government, consultants' leader Paul Miller effectively called on his colleagues to work to rule.
He said the new contract paid consultants for all the work they do – so if they agreed to work 50 hours a week they must be paid for 50 hours. But he claimed some strategic health authorities were pressuring trusts to pay a maximum of 40 hours.
Surveys showed consultants worked a 50-hour week on average. Miller insisted that they should not continue to provide the additional hours on a goodwill basis.
'Some say there is no money to pay us. I say, there is only an unwillingness to pay. Anything that is not paid for is not valued and has no future. Trusts must no longer plan patient care around consultants working for free,' he said.
There was nothing unprofessional in expecting to be paid for your professionalism, or for wanting to have time to spend with family and friends – or for learning to say 'no', Miller stressed.
'We now know that NHS bullying is not condemned from the top, it starts there. But we also know that you have to stand up to bullies because otherwise they don't stop.'
He added: 'So many trusts are obviously dragging their feet because they are unwilling to pay doctors for the work they do. Ultimately, it will be patients who suffer – if clinics close because hospitals won't pay their consultants to run them, it will mean longer waits and fewer patients being treated.'
PFjun2004
