Posts Tagged bma
The market can help the NHS
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 18/02/2010
The British Medical Association needs to stop its scare stories about the private sector, because the evidence isn’t there. Continued on The Guardian’s Comment is Free.
BMA campaign to shut out independent sector from NHS is misguided and foolhardy
Posted by James Gubb in Economics, Health on 12/02/2010
The BMA today extend their ‘Look After Our NHS’ campaign, to stop commercially run firms providing NHS care and end the market in the NHS, to patients.
Leaflets will be distributed containing stories such as a 70-year-old lady who is forced to go to a treatment centre run by a private provider and suffers ‘complications’.
The BMA are shamelessly politicising health care on cherry-picked evidence.
A not-so-surprising result of the BMA’s latest survey
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 23/12/2009
The latest salvo by the BMA in its ‘Look after our NHS’ campaign (i.e. get rid of the market) is to ask the following question, in a poll carried out by Doctors.net.uk:
“The BMA’s ‘Look after our NHS’ campaign is concerned that some large multinational companies are making profits out of running local clinical services on behalf of the NHS. To what extent do you agree with the campaign’s concerns?”
There were 697 responses with 80% saying they either strongly agreed (51%) or agreed (29%) with the statement. Just 7% said they either disagreed (4%) or strongly disagreed (3%).
Might I suggest a couple of problems with this?
The value for money of ISTCs
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 13/08/2009
Last week, when discussing the quality of care provided by ISTCs in relation to a briefing issued by the BMA, a run-through of value for money was promised. So here goes.
Read the rest of this entry »
‘Evidence’ BMA style
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 06/08/2009
A few weeks ago now the BMA launched a campaign to end market-based reform in the NHS. Their vision: the NHS ‘restored as a public service working co-operatively for patients’, that is publicly funded through central taxes, publicly provided and publicly accountable. Ok. Very good. It’s a nice idea, but we should also remember why the Thatcher/Major government and then the Blair government sort to introduce competition in the first place (and we should also remember that this is competition for provision… the service is still publicly funded).
‘Crass, childish, behaviour’
Posted by James Gubb in Health on 15/02/2008
Richard Vize writes what can only be described as a vitriolic attack on the BMA in his editorial in the Health Service Journal this week, describing them as resorting to ‘sabotage to block the modernisation of our primary care services’ and ‘crass, childish behaviour’.
His particular gripe is that the BMA’s GP Committee has, very unhelpfully it must be said, advised practices they are within their legal rights to withhold data being requested by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) on practice opening hours and the availability of appointments as part of an audit ordered by the Department of Health (DH). In this sense, Mr Vize is entirely correct in his attack, quite rightly pointing out that ‘GPs cannot take state money then refuse to be held to account for the services they provide’. But then, in the context of the whole debate on extended opening hours one can feel slightly sympathetic.