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Speeches from the Annual Representative Meeting 2007
25 - 28 June 2007
'The committee has considered several very important issues over the year and has had substantial influence on shaping recent and current legislation.'
Speech by the Chairman of the Ethics Committee, Dr Anthony Calland
"BMA International has been one of a select group of organisations funded by the Government’s Department for International Development to raise awareness of the link between poverty and ill health in developing countries".
Speech by Edwin Borman, Chairman of the International Committee
'If the government truly understood our role and the contribution we make to the NHS as a whole, they would realise that time and money spent on making the SAS grade a positive career option would provide productivity assurance and efficiency savings in the long term. It would be a rational investment in the NHS economy and, more important, in its primary objective of delivering first-class patient care.'
Speech by the Chairman of the Staff and Associate Specialists Committee, Dr Mohib Khan
'Successful organisations align their vision WITH the values and beliefs of their senior staff. They do not repeatedly knock them down to satisfy an out dated and ignorant belief of some radical left wing. Discontent amongst doctors, breeds discontent across the service. That is not good for us, for the government and it is not good for patients.'
Speech by the Chairman of the Central Consultants and Specialists Committee, Dr Jonathan Fielden
'Don’t let the short-term financial pressures lead you to make decisions that will lead to the long-term detriment for general practice and bring about a self-fulfilling prophesy that will place the control of general practice into the hands of fewer and fewer people.'
Speech by the Chairman of the General Practitioner's Committee, Dr Hamish Meldrum
'Our committee has been in regular contact with the English Department of Health in connection with a number of issues including PC0 funding of community nursing services, the withdrawal of health visitors from practices and practice-based commissioning.'
Speech by the Community Care Committee, Helena McKeownSpeech by the Chairman of the Scottish Council, Peter Terry, at the Annual Meeting 2007
'In welcoming Nicola Sturgeon, the new Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, I must pay tribute to three previous health ministers, Susan Deacon, Malcolm Chisholm, and Andy Kerr who all, in their very different ways, supported and enacted significant initiatives that have and will benefit the people of Scotland in the long term.'
'Doctors are in the business of health care, they are not in the business of business. Mostly they are vulnerable to sharp practice, and exploitation in this field. When you give your word you expect to honour it. This is not the case when working with some medical reporting agencies.'
Speech by the Chair of the Medico-Legal Committee, Jan Wise
It has also been an exciting year of reform for our health service with many fewer health bodies delivering better function and addressing some of the glaring needs within our NHS. In particular – waiting times. However, these functional changes and reforms of structure must not be allowed to staff, as the effects on healthcare would be disastrous.
Speech by the Chairman of the Northern Ireland Council, Dr Patterson
'No-one is more aware than me of the turmoil which has surrounded the BMA and the medical profession since we last met a year ago in Belfast. Four weeks ago I was not expecting to have to make this keynote address but we live in fast-moving and highly significant times for all doctors.'
Speech by Dr Sam Everington at the Annual Meeting
'As a specialist group, we join the growing consensus that New Labour and their power-seeking advisers are intent on deconstructing the profession. Public health medicine has been deconstructed. Our jobs and roles have been deconstructed – and I for one am pretty sure that those politicians and advisers don’t know how to put the NHS back together again..'
Speech by the Chair of the Public Health Medicine and Community Health. Dr Chris Spencer-Jones
'The MSC has taken an active part representing medical student views on Foundation Programme issues. Our aim has been to ensure that recruitment and transition into postgraduate training is as smooth as possible and that student views are strongly represented.'
Speech by Emily Rigby, Chair of the Medical Students Committee
'This report considers the work of the Board over the past session in a number of fields, so I will merely highlight the main achievements.
Speech by the Chair of the Board of Science. Sir Charles George
'Drive out the incentive to achieve, the incentive to excel, and we will have dumbed down the profession to an irretrievable extent. Research will be done by others and the profession will be reduced to a technical service.'
Speech by Chairman of the Medical Academic Staff Committee, Professor Michael Rees
'The Department of Health has finally published its controversial guidance on screening healthcare workers for blood-borne viruses. Although it is based on politics as much as science, and despite vociferous opposition from some, there will be some benefits from screening people at supposedly low risk, in terms of early detection of undiagnosed infection, access to effective treatment and opportunities to make appropriate career choices as well as perhaps increasing the acceptance of blood-borne virus testing generally and reducing the stigma for those living with infection.'
Speech by the Chair of the Occupational Health Committee, Dr Paul Grime
'We have met organisations to explain and often re-explain, the new pay structures following the implementation of the new contracts for NHS consultants and GPs. I am pleased to be able to report that many of them have accepted out proposal of an 11% increase for the 2 year period April 2006 to March 2008.'
Speech by Dr John Canning, Chair of the Professional Fees Committee
'There is one lesson we can learn already from the MTAS disaster: the huge risk of getting rid of what is good at the same time as trying to improve what is not.'
Speech by the Chair of the Junior Doctors' Committee, Jo Hilborne
'The political pensions arena has been dominated by the review of NHS pension schemes and most of the work done here has been negotiating an acceptable, now agreed, position that was consulted on across the UK during last Autumn and Winter.'
Speech by the Chair of the Pensions Committee. Mr Andrew Dearden
'Current regulation of the private sector is much more onerous than that of the NHS and much of it duplicates existing GMC regulation. The fees charged to private doctors were, in our opinion, excessive and we were delighted that our frequent representations to the Healthcare Commission persuaded them to reduce their fees by 50%.'
Speech by the Chair of the Private Practice Committee. Mr Derek Machin
'The Government’s dramatic change in position is welcome and is consistent with the motion by the RB on coroner reform passed in 2006. The comments made by the BMA in the evidence to the Select Committee and through written submissions have at last been heard by Government. However, very serious and fundamental questions remain regarding funding arrangements and the proposed involvement of PCTs in the commissioning of medical advice.'Speech by Dr John Canning (on behalf of Dr George Fernie, Chairman of the Forensic Medicine Committee)