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Special Staff and Associate Specialists Conference

SAS Contract - next steps
Saturday 1 December 2007
BMA House, London

The conference was webcast live and the archive is now available from the link on the right hand side of this page.

A number of the regional and national BMA centres hosted smaller meetings where attendees were able to watch the live webcast of the special conference in London and participated in local discussion groups.

As you may be aware, on 22 August the staff and associate specialists committee core negotiating team formally withdrew from talks with the government over the stalled contract. The withdrawal from talks follows the government's failure to meet a deadline which the SASC issued on 27 July for release of the contract to allow a ballot of SAS doctors and dentists by 17 August 2007. The contract, agreed with NHS Employers and submitted to the Department of Health in November 2006, has been with the Treasury's Public Sector Pay Committee since February this year.

The SASC needs to hear the views of SAS doctors and dentists as these views will be instrumental in determining what course of action is pursued.

The SASC is very keen to hear the opinions of grass-roots SAS doctors on the contract proposals and options for action and a substantial amount of the day was devoted to listening to the views of the conference delegates. The programme for the conference is below.

Programme
10.00 - 10.25 hrs
Registration and refreshments

10.25 - 10.30 hrs
Welcome
Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of BMA Council

10.30 - 10.40 hrs
Introduction
Mohib Khan, Co-Chairman, SASC

10.40 - 11.00 hrs
Background, history, political context and current state of play
Awani Choudhary, Co-Chairman, SASC

11.00 - 11.30 hrs
Presentation of the contract proposals
Ashok Pathak, Chairman, SASC Negotiating Subcommittee

11.30 - 11.50 hrs
Preliminary results of the survey of SAS group doctors
Greg Dilliway, Chairman, SASC Strategy, Policy and Procedures Subcommittee

11.50 - 13.00 hrs
Questions and answers
Chaired by Anthea Mowat, Chair, SASC Annual Conference

13.00 - 13.45 hrs
Lunch

13.45 - 15.00 hrs
Discussion groups

15.00 - 15.45 hrs
Refreshments

15.45 - 16.45 hrs
Feedback from discussion groups
Chaired by Awani Choudhary, Co-Chairman, SASC

16.45 - 17.00 hrs
Summary and next steps
Mohib Khan, Co-Chairman, SASC

17.00 hrs
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