Speech by the Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee
Dr John Ferguson
Wednesday 3 July
The last year has been a difficult one for the armed forces with extra commitments arising from the ‘war on terrorism’ and the major exercise in Oman in the autumn. These have added to the extreme overstretch experienced by doctors in the Defence Medical Services.
Not surprisingly the Government has recently announced a cut back in Britain’s overseas commitments. However, this did not come until after the first call up of medical reservists since the Gulf War and the promise to provide troops to patrol the line of control in Kashmir.
The last year has, therefore, put the state of the Defence Medical Services into even sharper focus. The Armed Forces Committee has attempted to raise the profile of armed forces doctors and the DMS both within the BMA and beyond. A key debate on the issue at Council in December led to the Chairman of Council raising these issues with the Prime Minister himself. I believe that this has contributed directly to the greater involvement of the Committee by the MoD in its work in this area, in particular in the Ministry’s Medical Manning and Retention Review, established to tackle the medical manning crisis in the DMS.
As usual the main work of the Committee this year was drafting the evidence for the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB). The Co-ordinating Group worked throughout the autumn on improving and enhancing the evidence that it put to the Review Body the previous year. The Group crafted what I believe to be the best evidence produced by the Committee for many years. Throughout the process the Group met with the members of the Surgeon General’s Department responsible for drafting his evidence.
The oral evidence was a tough session, in which I was ably assisted by Graham Wheatley. Significant emphasis was placed on the Committee’s relationship with the MOD. I left the session pessimistic about the eventual outcome. In the event the Report was by no means as bad as it could have been, though it was clear that the fundamental changes the Committee felt were needed had been left to the MoD’s Medical Manning and Retention Review. Nonetheless there were some advances, notably the increase in Trainer Pay to the NHS rate, the recognition that DMS juniors had fallen behind their NHS counterparts on out of hours pay and a much fuller explanation of the Review Body’s decisions.
As part of the collection of evidence for the Review Body the Co-ordinating Group agreed to conduct a survey of GMP Trainers. This was carried out by Drs Cordell, Timothy and Withnall at the Tri-Service trainers conference. The Committee’s activity in this respect was very well received by those attending the conference. The survey revealed very low morale, largely because of the MOD’s refusal to pay trainers in the Services the same level of training grant as in the NHS. This evidence clearly contributed to the positive outcome.
As I indicated last year, the Committee has made it a priority to seek an improved relationship with the Surgeon General and his team. I met the Surgeon General early in the summer and it was agreed that the Committee and the Surgeon General’s Department should liase on the production of evidence to the AFPRB. The Surgeon General kicked the process off by meeting with the Co-ordinating Group in October (an almost unique event in the history of relations between the BMA and the MoD) and regular meetings were held with his department thereafter. I and John Keeling also met the Surgeon General shortly before the oral evidence session and there was formal exchange of evidence.
All this represents a significant advance for the Committee. For example, we had not previously seen the MoD’s evidence to the AFPRB. I very much welcome these developments. Liaison between the MoD and the BMA has continued to improve during the MMRR process and I hope that this can be built on during the preparation of evidence for next year’s pay round.
The Committee continues to increase its efforts to get its message across to opinion formers. It has worked closely with the BMA’s Public Affairs Division and Parliamentary Affairs Unit on targeting and refining its message. A meeting was arranged with the Conservative Party’s Defence Spokesman responsible for the Defence Medical Services who seemed very responsive to the points that were made. Liaison also continues with the Liberal Democrat defence team. I am also due to meet with the minister responsible for the Defence Medical Services, Dr Lewis Moonie MP, later this month.
The Committee has discussed issues affecting members of the volunteer reserve, civilian medical practitioners and civilian hospital doctors. It has also begun to investigate the possible impact on uniformed doctors of the implementation of the working time directive for MOD civilian doctors. I would urge members of the Association who are in the medical reserves to let the BMA Membership Department know so that they can be more fully involved in the work of the Committee.
I commend the work of the Committee to you and welcome your support for its efforts.