GPs reject call for industrial action
BMA News
13 June 2008
GPs have rejected calls for their leaders to consider industrial action as a tactic to combat any further erosion of their contract.
Gloucestershire GP Tom Yerburgh called on GPs to agree that industrial action should be ‘seriously contemplated’ and for the BMA GPs committee to ‘formulate plans for a ballot on industrial action by GPs’.
He said: ‘We have moved from a milk and honey contract to a milk of magnesia contract.’
Dr Yerburgh told the BMA conference of local medical committees today (13/06/08) that he was ‘utterly disgusted’ with how the government had negotiated the GP contract for 2008/09, with GP practices told to accept extended hours or face worse financial cuts.
He suggested GPs took action that would not impact on patient care, such as refusing to upload electronic patient records to the national care record service ‘spine’, or altering referral patterns.
North Yorkshire GP Brian McGregor agreed: ‘When exactly does a problem become a crisis?’
Cardiff GP Noel McLoughlin said: ‘We have to negotiate honourably but we have to negotiate hard and we need some ammunition.’
GPC deputy chair Richard Vautrey (pictured) cautioned the 400 GPs at the conference that the BMA had to take careful legal steps before even considering a ballot for industrial action, and that now was not the time to do this.
He said: ‘This is not something [that] is appropriate now, or legal now.’
GPs at the conference also agreed that GPC negotiators had ‘acted honourably and negotiated in good faith’ and said the government had ‘sacrificed the goodwill of the profession’.