I suspect that if the Government attempted to impose this contract it
would find itself looking down the barrel of the first ever Consultant
strike or mass resignation. We are still able to resign from the NHS and
offer our services back on our terms, but only if a substantial
proportion of the Consultant body does it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Accident and Emergency Academic List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: 17 July 2002 13:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Consultant Contract
Just heard from a local BMA rep that if the consultant body doesn't
endorse this contract - and we are still not sure what sort of voting
system will apply - then it may be imposed upon us. That's rather
telling isn't it? If the government are prepared to impose this contract
upon us, clearly they must feel very comfortable with its terms. Anyway
I'm sure such a contract cannot be lawfully imposed upon us, but I would
defer to Andrew on that particular matter.
Adrian Fogarty
> from: "Dunn Matthew Dr. (RJC) ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY - SwarkHosp-TR"
<[log in to unmask]>
> date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 10:20:05
> to: [log in to unmask]
> subject: Re: Consultant Contract
>
> Interesting how there doesn't seem to be much support for this. When I
> first read it I thought A and E might be hit pretty hard, but I
> reckoned that
> (say) anaesthetists, pathologists, dermatologists or something might
like
> it. Then I found most of my anaesthetist, dermatologist and
pathologist
> friends spitting feathers about it. In my own hospital, even the
clinical
> and medical directors don't like it. (They reckon job planning will be
put
> in the hands of 'performance managers' with regular evening and
weekend
> elective work). The on call supplement is strange- I moved from a 1:2
to a
> 1:3 a couple of years back and it made a huge difference. To pay a 1:2
the
> same as a 1:4 is ridiculous, although I'm not sure that 8% is enough
for
> even a 1:4- the old class B UMTs would have paid 10% for a 1:4 with
> prospective cover; and 18% for the usual 1:2- telephone advice only.
And
> that was in the days when it was thought that juniors weren't paid
enough
> for on call.
> As Adrian says, it is unlikely that many people will get the 2 session
> allowance for on call work. On a 1:3, coming in for an hour or two
every
> night you are on call means you get one half day off a week- so anyone
> taking an afternoon off to recover after being up in the early hours
of the
> morning will have to compensate either by working every Saturday
morning of
> by working a 12 hour day at some point during the week. This very
much
> encourages us to leave critically ill patients to the juniors of our
own and
> other peoples teams in the early hours.
> If you compare the new contract to the opening offer from the
government a
> year and a half ago, the only concession the BMA has achieved is
dropping
> the 'perhaps 7 year' ban on private practice.
>
> Matt Dunn
>
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