Speech from the Chairman of the Central Consultants & Specialists Committee, Dr Paul Miller
Tuesday 1 July 2003
Not too long ago, we were criticised as being the forces of conservatism, preventing change. We are not. We were the very ones who had long called for improved, modernised NHS services. We are the modernisers, the reformers of patient services.
Now we are described as militants, threatening industrial action. We are not. We have spent months waiting for the Department of Health to rejoin us at the discussion table, while consultants became increasingly angry, unified as never before by the approach of government.
We were criticised as being out of touch. We are not. We have surveyed our members, we know what they want, and we know that it is up to CCSC to represent those members.
We are what we always have been.
We are the defenders of the doctor patient relationship. We are the independent professional view in the NHS. We are the advocates of patients.
So strongly do we hold these values that we have left £133 million of pay unclaimed because we believe some aspects of the framework threatened these values.
For over six months the government refused to make progress with us on our contract. We repeated time and again that we wanted to work constructively with them. At the same time, we made preparations for the industrial action our members were demanding. Our industrial action, which would always prioritise and protect the acutely ill and emergency patient, might simply include consultants improving their lives by reducing the extra unpaid hours they work. Refusing to accept overbooked clinics so that every patient will get adequate time. Setting aside time to supervise other staff appropriately. Putting quality and clinical priorities first and foremost, over and above targets at all costs. Using quality standards and Royal College guidelines.
Now, at last, our new Secretary of State has arranged to meet us on Friday, and says he wants to sort it out, to work with us to address the problems. I welcome that, and he will find us prepared and keen to work hard with him.
It is easy, so easy, to find grounds for disagreement, and we have the stomach for the fight, if necessary. It is much harder to find agreements. But we stand ready to do the hard thing, to put the conflict behind us, to achieve a new contract which will be good for patients and good for consultants.
But I want us to think about an NHS and a relationship with government beyond the consultant contract. The government deserves credit for the funding it is now, at last, putting into the NHS. We deserve credit for keeping patient services going by working, on average, many hours beyond our contract.
It is time that we both earned credit by repairing our relationship for the benefit of patients and for our mutual benefit.
Imagine an NHS where government and BMA together work out how to provide patient services after the Working Time Directive for juniors. How to improve medical training to reduce wasted years before consultant level. How to plan and deliver NHS service objectives that are good for patients, important to government, meaningful to consultants. How to reform NHS disciplinary procedures such that patients are always protected, but no doctor is needlessly suspended by badly run local disciplinary processes.
This win-win option is available to us, once we re-establish what we should have. A mature, constructive relationship, where we both understand that the problems are not between us, but in front of both of us.
We are imaginative, creative, inventive. We can find solutions. The best days of the NHS can be still in front of us.
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