Health Secretary urges British Medical Association to ‘stop the sabre-rattling’

The British Medical Association (BMA) should stop “sabre-rattling” and work with the Government on the future of general practice, the Health Secretary has said.

Wes Streeting said there was still the “unnecessary threat of collective action” from the BMA’s GP committee that “would harm patients”.

It comes as leading scientist Professor Sir John Bell said doctors in the BMA have “been a major drag on reform of healthcare”, as a report on the health service is published.

The BMA said it was “having positive conversations with the Health Secretary”, adding that “a decade and more of mismanagement has erased the trust and goodwill of many frontline staff”.

Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I do not find resistance in the NHS, people are crying out for change, and I have some good conversations with the BMA, actually, on reform.”

He added: “I contrast that with some of the sabre-rattling we’ve seen from the BMA’s GP committee.

“Despite the fact we put £100 million into GP unemployment in the first six weeks of this Government and our determination to grow primary care in general practice as a proportion of NHS budget, we still see sabre-rattling, the unnecessary threat of collective action which, let’s be clear, would harm patients and put more burden on their colleagues in other parts of the NHS.

“I don’t think that’s where GPs are, actually. I think GPs want to work with this Government.

“They can see the seriousness of our intent, and GPs really care about their patients. They want, as we do, to rebuild the family doctor relationship.

“I urge the BMA to work with us on that, and stop the sabre-rattling.”

Sir John, who served as regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford for more than two decades, said the “stranglehold” the medical profession had over the healthcare system had to be broken.

The physician, who was appointed a Companion of Honour in the King’s Birthday Honours list in 2023, told the BBC’s The Today Podcast: “There is a problem that the incumbents, who are the doctors in the BMA, have been a major drag on reform of healthcare.

“If you’re thinking about eggs you’re going to have to break – I’m afraid that the stranglehold that the medical profession is broadly to have on the way we run a healthcare system is going to have to be sorted.”

Earlier this year, the University of Oxford announced Sir John was stepping down from his role as regius professor of medicine to take up a new position as president of the Ellison Institute of Technology Oxford.

The university said Sir John had played “a major role in the development and rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine”.

Sir John said: “I think that the medical profession is locked into a way of life and a way of practising medicine, but they are deeply conservative, and they’re very hard to move to a different place.

“So, just wait until you start trying to replace pathologists with AI reading of slides.

“Moving innovation into the system requires not just push, it needs pull – and the guys who have to pull it are the docs.”

Professor Phil Banfield, chairman of BMA council, said the trade union had “long been at the forefront of calling for reform in the health service in England and the devolved nations”.

He added: “It’s no secret that the newly elected Government inherited an NHS in England widely wrecked from year upon year of relative underinvestment – particularly of general practice.

“We are having positive conversations with the Health Secretary as both he and the BMA believe it is crucial that we rebuild the NHS and make it fit for the future.

“Now we have a Health Secretary prepared to listen, and it’s vital he does, working with us to undo years of untold damage.”

Prof Banfield said the “current workforce crisis was predictable, inevitable and must be reversed urgently”.

He added: “Lord Darzi’s report on the English NHS points out that it is both possible and crucial that waiting times are improved quickly, but without a workforce there is no health service.

“Allowing the constructive dismissal of general practice would be a catastrophic mistake, yet this new Government has the opportunity to value doctors and save our NHS through immediate engagement and investment in GP contracts.

“However, this must not be at the sacrifice of an already under-resourced secondary care.”