The fight to restore doctors pay and the empowerment of BMA members are among the pledges of new association council chair Tom Dolphin.

Anaesthetic consultant Dr Dolphin was elected chair by the association’s council following the conclusion of the annual representative meeting (ARM) in Liverpool yesterday [25 June]. 

Dr Dolphin, who will begin his term as chair with immediate effect, was one of five candidates, with two of these running as a co-chair nomination.  

He takes over from previous chair Prof Philip Banfield who served as council chair for three years and led the association through the Covid-19 inquiry and multiple waves of industrial action across the medical profession.  

Paying tribute to the work of Prof Banfield during his time as chair, Dr Dolphin has vowed to empower all BMA members in light of the many challenges facing doctors and medical students. 

He said: ‘It’s an honour and privilege to have been elected to lead the nation’s doctors at such a pivotal time.   

‘I’d like to thank Phil for his fantastic leadership over the last three years; it is a great responsibility to take over from him. It has been a period of huge change for the BMA which has seen doctors realise the power that they have as trade union members to change their working lives – and in turn health systems – for the better.  

‘The fight to restore doctors’ pay and pensions continues, with colleagues across the country furious that the promised ‘journey’ towards pay restoration that we were promised has already come to a grinding halt.  

‘I will empower BMA members so that everywhere that doctors work and medical students study, they know that they are stronger together, and the exploitation and erosion of our profession is stopped.  

‘The Government has the chance to reshape the NHS into a service that values its greatest asset: the staff who every day go above and beyond. But these staff are increasingly demoralised to see their pay eroding again as the service routinely strains in the summer under conditions we once would have considered the worst winter crisis we’d ever seen.  

‘Doctors are fighting back, standing up for standards and patient safety, standing up for pay and conditions, and standing up for health services that we can be proud of.’ 

Based in London, Dr Dolphin has been a member of BMA council since 2012. He is chair of his hospital trust’s local negotiating committee (LNC), which represents and negotiates for doctors at employer-level. He lives in London with his husband.