NHS consultants reject new contract

Consultants today rejected a new NHS contract which offered a 20 per cent pay rise in return for more evening and weekend work.

In September 45,000 consultants and specialist registrars were sent voting papers asking if they wanted to accept the new deal which had been negotiated by the British Medical Association and the Government.

Today the BMA revealed that overall in the UK 62.5 per cent voted against the contract compared to 37.5 per cent in favour.

Doctors in England and Wales voted against the contract by two to one but in Scotland and Northern Ireland consultants were in favour of the new deal.

In Scotland 59 per cent of doctors voted yes and 41 per cent voted no. Among consultants in Northern Ireland 54 per cent were in favour while 46 per cent were against.

In England, the yes vote was 34 per cent with 66 per cent against. The same figures applied to Wales.

Taken together this represents an overwhelming rejection of the contract across the UK.

The result is a blow to Health Secretary Alan Milburn who wanted to reduce NHS waiting times by getting consultants to do extra work in the evenings and at weekends.

The new contract would have seen most consultants better off by around 20 per cent over the course of their career.

Each consultant would have had a job plan based on a core week of four 10–hour sessions, which would have included evenings and Saturday mornings.

The contract would also have given the NHS exclusive use of up to 48 hours a week of a consultant's time for the first seven years after qualification.

The BMA heralded the contract as a good deal for doctors, but many criticised it, warning it would have given managers too much control.

Dr Peter Hawker, who has been chairman of the BMA's Central Consultants and Specialists Committee for four years, today resigned in light of the ballot result.

He said: "Consultants have delivered their verdict. It varies across the UK but of course I accept and respect it.

"The result in England and Wales is very decisive and requires us to think again.

"I genuinely thought the new contract could be made to work in the interests of patients, consultants and the NHS."

He said there was much that was good in the contract but it had divided opinion within the profession.

"We now have a major task ahead to tackle their concerns and rebuild a sense of unity.

"I led the campaign for acceptance of the contract and I am therefore not the right person to take that new work forward.

"I wish my successor and all my consultant colleagues well."

The CCSC has a UK wide remit but separate consultants committees exist for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Those committees will meet over the course of the next week to decide their next move.

It is possible that, for example given the yes vote in Scotland and Northern Ireland, consultants there could seek its implementation.

Dr Hawker said he rejected any implication that consultants were trying to block progress on improving waiting times for patients.

"The fact that waiting times have come down is due to the very hard work of consultants and all their colleagues in the NHS," he said.

"No–one who works in the NHS, as I do, is unaware of the pressures on consultants and managers but I do take responsibility for underestimating the depth of the malaise that exists and which has led consultants in England and Wales to reject a contract which would substantially increase their lifetime earnings."

BMA chairman Dr Ian Bogle said: "Consultants in England and Wales have turned down a substantial pay rise on matters of principle.

"Those who have rejected this contract have done so because they have experienced at first hand the huge political pressures placed on managers who pass the pressure down the line to clinical staff who are overstretched.

"They fear that the new contract will increase pressures on them."

He said performance targets could mean that patients with less urgent conditions are treated ahead of those who are more seriously ill.

"Clearly we will need urgent discussions with the Health Secretary to clarify the Government's position but the most important and urgent task is to reconnect with our members and find a way forward that meets their needs and addresses their concerns."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Evan Harris said: "This is a shattering blow to what's left of Labour's medical workforce strategy.

"The rejection is not about pay – the settlement would have been generous.

"It was a refusal to give ministers and managers even more control of NHS decisions in an over–centralised service that places central diktat and political priorities ahead of patients' needs.

"This vote shows the depth of medical opposition to Government policy and the extent of the suspicion of ministers' motives.

"The Government's workforce strategy is clearly in tatters."