Head of the British Medical Association, Dr Hamish Meldrum, states that the NHS reform is ‘very dangerous’ in his interview with the BBC.  Prior to the SRM Live debate yesterday in which the particpants fell short of declaring a vote of no confidence in the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the BBC’s Branwen Jeffrerys interviews the leader of the BMA.

Transcript of the BBC interview with Dr Hamish Meldrum:

The government says that the BMA supports its plans, what is your response to that?

“Well I don’t know where the government have got the idea that we support their proposals.  We didn’t see an awful lot of the detail until the actual bill came out. But now that we’ve seen the detail, now that we have seen that, really up until now, up until very recently the government hasn’t shown any willingness to listen to the chorus…. not just the BMA but the chorus of disapproval about many of its policies, now that we have hardened our position…”

You’ve got a special representative meeting, the first for almost 20 years.  Isn’t that partly because of the strong grass roots feeling that the BMA hasn’t been shouting loud enough about these concerns?

“This was a decision taken by the BMA council, by the leadership, because we thought the time was right.  We are always listening and this is another way of ratcheting up our concerns about the government’s proposals. So, yes, we do want to hear from them.  We want to hear what they think.  We want to put more pressure on the government to change what we think are flawed and very risky proposals for the NHS.  I am a realist and the likliehood of completely getting rid of the health bill is very remote.  But I still think it is not too late to change.  We would rather get back to a stage where the NHS was the preferred provider.  But there is also the pace of change, the enormity of the change and lets remember that this is all happening at a time when the health service is facing the most difficult financial problems that it has faced for many years.  So this is (a) high risk strategy that the government is undertaking.  They keep saying they want to listen to doctors, listen to health professionals.  Well, please listen to us, please listen to the nurses, listen to the other people involved in the health service and actually don’t go ahead with alot of this very risky and what we would say, very dangerous proposals for the NHS.”

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