Angry Profession
PAUL VAUGHAN writes:
The Review Body did their best,' said a senior BMA official on Monday, 'but all they have suc- ceeded in doing is to show up the deficiencies of the system.' That about sums up the initial medical reaction towards the £5+ million offered them by Lord Kindersley and his six fellow- investigators. It sounds a lot of money : but, they complained, only about half of us will get a look at it. The award is so arranged that the lion's share will go to those doctors who employ secretaries, nurses or receptionists and keep their surgeries looking decent. The others, not neces- sarily less deserving, will have to make do with an extra £10 a head included in the award as acknowledgement of the GP's extra work.
The Minister of Health promptly replied that this misrepresents a decision which, however You look at it, means an extra £51 million, de- signed to improve standards of practice : and that the Review Body's provisions will enable doctors to do work outside general practice, with- out their fees being deducted from the 'pool.'
So the stage is set for an angry confrontation between the minister and the GPs. For the rank and file of doctors, who have been hoping for
'Of course it will fly—mine does!'
more generous largesse than this, will now, no doubt, go up in the air and burst. The BMA will be hard put to it to control the suicide-pilots of general practice, with their loud demands for sanctions, go-slows and other restrictive practices which would backfire on the patients: The full-scale strike threatened by the wild men is improbable: after all, some doctors will gain from the award if the terms can ever be agreed. What is more likely is a series of deliberate, but ineffectual, locally organised break- downs, engineered in various militant areas and of short duration, whose only effect in the end would be to sap confidence in the profession.
One ray of hope : the Review Body's task (however thankless) has to be repeated only a few months from now. Their next regular trien- nial review of all doctors' pay (consultants in- cluded) is due to start at the end of this year, for the one that culminated in Monday's an- nouncement was by way of a postscript to the award of 1963. Perhaps something more accept- able can be devised next time.
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