MEDICINE
Shock treatment
JOHN ROWAN WILSON
The rumpus about the doctors' pay award is a clear indication, for anyone who needs it, that 1970 is just 1966 over again, and that we are in for some nasty shocks about the economy after the election. The Kindersley Review Body delivered its arbitration award to the Government over two months ago. It was only with the greatest reluctance, after pressure from Lord Kindersley himself and a threat of strike action by the doctors, that Mr Wilson finally agreed to publish it. And, on reading it carefully, one can see why.
For the obvious implication behind this report, written by an independent body with no political axe to grind, is that the Government's so-called incomes policy has broken down. It states bluntly that 'earnings of salaried and weekly-paid employees have over some years risen more quickly than could result from applying the norms in sucCessive White Papers on incomes policy' and reminds the Government that since the middle of last year it has pretty well ignored this policy altogether. It then proceeds to make an award for doctors, based on the income of comparable groups in other pro- fessions, of about 15 per cent per annum for the two years in question.
This is very awkward for Mr Wilson. He still has hopes of persuading the electorate that the 'incomes policy' is a reality. In fact, of course, it is just a device by which cer- tain groups of simple-hearted peopla are persuaded to accept a fictitious national norm, while those who flatly refuse to listen to such nonsense are given whatever they are powerful enough to obtain.
The Kindersley report shows clearly that i^ doctors as a class have lost out badly as a result of all this humbug. Consequently, the Review Body recommends that, for their own good and that of the country, their pay should be brought back into proper rela- tionship with that of the other professions. Some of the reasons given for delaying the publication of the report have been so shifty as to take on the dimensions of farce, It was rather like watching Mr Brian Rix claiming that he would never even think of concealing a girl in his bedroom, and at the time trying to stuff a pair of knickers into his hip pocket. It was said that the report was very complicated (it covers sixty- six pages and is written with admIrable lucidity). And everyone was very busy—there was the Budget, then Mr Jenkins had to go on holiday, then Mr Crossman was in Malta, it was go-go-go all the time, it was really Then up came the question of the election. Mr Crossman and Mr Wilson got together and they decided it wouldn't be fair to make a decision in an election atmosphere—it wouldn't be in the doctors' own interests At this point, plainly, they went too far. The representatives of the doctors are a stolid, serious-minded group of chaps, with a strong tendency to believe assurances from men in high positions. But the idea of Mr Wilson taking a decision in somebody else's interests just before a general election was too much for them. They told him that if he didn't stop stalling he would be in for serious trouble.
With a very ill grace, the Government published the report, together with its own decision upon it. This decision was, quite simply, to refuse to pay up. Yet the original agreement about the review body was that, in the words of the Royal Commission which recommended it, its findings 'must only very rarely and for obviously compelling reasons be rejected.' In other words, the Government could only honourably refuse to pay if the country was in serious financial- difficulty. But Mr Wilson is busy telling everyone that the country is economically strong as never before. No wonder he didn't want to publish the report.
Of course, the Government's refusal to honour its obligations is wrapped up in the usual hocus-pocus. The percentage figures which ale rejected for the rest of the pro- fession are accepted for the junior hospital doctors, since the staff situation is so dread- ful at this level as to be a public scandal. The Gas and consultants are given half what the report recommends, and the rest is re- ferred to the prices and incomes board. In other words, the Government, having failed to get the answer that suits it from one advisory body, is having the case tried again in another court, which, with any luck, may be more docile. And since the whole exist- ence of the prices and incomes board is bound up with this bogus `norm' there is an excellent chance that it will be.
The members of the review body have re- signed. It is difficult to see what else they could do. If their recommendations are only to be accepted when they suit the Govern- ment's book, it seems hardly worth taking the trouble to make them. As for the BMA, they are having to face the fact that gentle- manly arbitration simply isn't a proposition any more, and that tough union action is the only alternative left to them.
It isn't only the Prime Minister who Is forcing them into this position. They have Mr Clive Jenkins breathing down their neck. He is ready to offer the doctors a kind of negotiation which is traditionally highly dis- tasteful to professional men, but which has obtained dramatic results in other fields. The doctors are not ready for this yet. Person- ally I think it will be an unfortunate thing if they ever do become ready for it. But if they do, it will be Mr Wilson who put the idea into their heads.
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