Offline: Standing down for patients

Abstract

By an overwhelming majority, doctors in Britain voted to take industrial action for one day on June 21. In answer to the question “Are you prepared to take part in a strike?”, 32 455 doctors voted “yes” out of 52 068 valid votes cast (72%). The reason? Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of the British Medical Association's (BMA) Council, put it this way: “this clear mandate for action—on a very high turnout—reflects just how let down doctors feel by the government's unwillingness to find a fairer approach to the latest pension changes and its refusal to acknowledge the major reforms of 2008 that made the NHS scheme sustainable in the long term.” The last time doctors took industrial action was in 1975. They are clearly extremely angry about the proposed changes to their pension scheme. More angry, it seems, than they were about the Government's Health and Social Care Bill, which doctors also opposed, but not quite enough to consider industrial action. How will this strike appear to the public? The news media in Britain have given their verdict: “The shameful self-interest of doctors”, said one newspaper. “Inexcusable”, “baffling”, “mistaken”, “unseemly”, “a massive own goal”, and “greedy” were words used by others. Doctors are rightly nervous about a negative public perception. The BMA's press release announcing industrial action claimed their decision “does not constitute a strike”. This is wordplay. The ballot explicitly invited doctors to vote on strike action. Doctors resoundingly said they would—and now will. Hamish Meldrum has tried to pacify public anger by publishing an open letter in which he writes that, “It is with great regret that we, UK doctors, have been forced to take industrial action in order that our voice is heard by the Government.” When most workers in the private sector have much less secure pension arrangements than doctors, when most of the public is facing much worse financial hardship than doctors, and when most employees have considerably less job security than doctors, Dr Meldrum might reflect that the headlines he is so keen to dispute might contain a kernel of truth.