Doctors to take industrial action to secure better pensions than most of their patients.
Filed Under (BMA, Uncategorized) by Paul on 31-05-2012
Blog readers will remember the fury of the BMA when the Government continued with their Health and Social Care Act . Month after month – from the autumn of 2010 to the passage of the Bill in March 2012 – the BMA warned that the Bill would endanger the NHS.
They lobbied, they argued, they issued press releases, but because they take their relationships with their patients so seriously, they never took industrial action.
But… hang about! Yesterday the BMA announced
“Doctors to take industrial action for first time in almost 40 years”
Could this be a late surge of industrial action to save the NHS from the Government reform programme?
Could the BMA, having weighed up the relative importance of saving the NHS against their not taking industrial action because of their commitment to their patients, have reluctantly decided to take industrial action in order to save the NHS?
OK… it’s a bit late to stop the Bill – but a principle is a principle.
As Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council at the BMA, said,
“This is not a step that doctors take lightly – this is the first industrial action doctors have taken since 1975.”
He went on,
“Non-urgent work will be postponed and, although this will be disruptive to the NHS, doctors will ensure patient safety is protected.”
But no, when you read the whole press release it is of course clear that the BMA’s first industrial action for 40 years is not to save an egalitarian NHS.
It’s actually quite some remove from that project.
This industrial action is to try and ensure that doctors will have better pensions than 90% of their pensioner patients.
So if your NHS appointment is cancelled on June 21st as a result of the BMA’s industrial action – remember that your added pain and distress is all in a good cause.
Amongst public sector pensions being paid out, doctors account for two thirds of the top 1% of pay outs.
What ever one’s views of the proposed industrial action, BMA/doctors could not have taken action over the health bill. Would have been illegal.
If my maths is right £68,000 pension equates to a pension pot on £1,900,000 using an anuity rate of £3,500 /per £100,000
After 45 years of contributions – as a GP – I don’t receive anywhere near £68,000 p.a. in my pension: where does Andrew Lansley get his figures from?
The public sector pension reforms for all public servants have the effect of penalising younger contributers and future generations and will probably increase the obscenely large surplus being contributed by the NHS Pension scheme to the Treasury.
Doctors – being a highly trained and relatively highly paid profession and the NHS being a monopoly employer – so the tend to stay in the same pension scheme for the whole of their working lives – are likely to have a higher pension than lower paid workers with an intermittent contribution history.
Is the feeling among readers of this blog that any group with long and high contributions to a pension scheme which has not been plundered (remember Robert Maxwell?) should have their pensions reduced to the lowest possible pension in the private sector?
And does the same apply to Judges and MPs?