White paper “large curate’s egg”, says BMA chairman

Released 30/07/2010

Meldrum says report has good parts and bad

BMA Council Chairman, Dr Hamish Meldrum, has today written to doctors and medical students likening England's health white paper to a "large curate's egg".

He explained it was "good in parts, bad in parts, unclear in parts and even internally inconsistent in parts."

He said that while it offers opportunities for doctors to take more control over the design of services for patients, there are also "perceived threats to education and national terms and conditions of service," and concerns "that it will increase the role of the market in healthcare."

Dr Meldrum said the BMA would "critically engage" with the consultation on the white paper to address doctors' concerns and achieve the best outcomes for patients.

"I am in no doubt that this is a very challenging agenda and that it is not without risk," he said. "There are challenges for the NHS, for the profession and for the BMA but I believe that it is vital that we rise to the challenge and, together, try to ensure that we mould these proposals into a set of solutions that can benefit our patients and the working lives of doctors."

One of the key proposals in the White Paper is to devolve more involvement and financial control in commissioning to GPs.

Dr Meldrum wrote: "The BMA has made it abundantly clear that, for commissioning to be successful, there must be the fullest engagement with secondary care colleagues and, indeed, with the public. There is an opportunity here for doctors to take more control over their working lives and the design of services for their patients, but only by working together, in partnership, will doctors be able to maintain or even improve these services in these financially constrained times."

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