Consultant writes to Jeremy Hunt
Sent to Mr Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health:
Dear Mr Hunt,
I find your comments that patients may be at risk during the strike deeply insulting: I and my Consultant colleagues up and down the country will ensure that patient care continues to be delivered in the same timely way as always. However I will also ensure that each and every patient I see that day knows that their care is seriously in jeopardy if your contract goes through. The only thing that will suffer those days are the endless box-ticking exercises in order to produce meaningless and misleading measurables (oh and perhaps my family who will see me less those days but you clearly intend that to be the case with your proposed new Consultant Contract).
Patients will remain safe on strike days: if you wish them to remain so then call in ACAS or stand aside for someone who will. We can, as a profession, no longer trust someone who deliberately misleads, misrepresents and spins untruths.
Yours sincerely
Katharine McDevitt
Consultant Paediatrician
Member University Advisory Board at UPES Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
9 年Two angry doctors have written to the cabinet office and Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to demand an investigation - and claim Mr Hunt may have to resign. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-hunt-misled-parliament-over-6645957 I believe this to be historic. We shall all await in interest to see how this matter is handled.
Member University Advisory Board at UPES Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
9 年The problem with being professional and reasonable with argument is that such informed opinion is ignored and "binned". The language of reassurance used is alien to the poltician, who has already succeeded in acquiring a vote of no confidence from the BMA and is still in post. This is a damning appraisal of performance and in any other industry would have resulted in dismissal. We really need to understand what is going on here. We have a government determined to win the dispute over an adversary mirroring a Medical version of Arthur Scargill. They have forgotten that the BMA is not the British Miners Association and that the NHS needs doctors in order to function. It is not possible to shut healthcare down like a coalfield. And that is why the doctors will win and why the Health Secretary will not be Health Secretary for much longer.