The BMA's Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The article below nicely written by the Times details the antics at the BMA Conference last year. The same broken record is being played at the Conference this year.Some of us who have sat through this broken record first on vinyl and then on ipod are getting really really bored.

It is interesting to note as follows 

1. The BMA does not mention any cases they themselves have taken to Employment Tribunals on behalf of Whistleblowers. This is what they advise 

"The BMA advises hospital doctors to err on the side of raising any concerns about malpractice or systemic failures, and to do it as soon as they can, rather than allowing the situation to reach a point where patient safety is threatened. It points out that employees who are victimised after raising their concerns can go to an employment tribunal, and that employers can be heavily fined"

So lets get this straight, the doctor raises a concern, the BMA then refuses to assist them legally [ as has happened to multiple whistleblowers over the years], their references are ruined and they may never get a job in the UK but "employers can be heavily fined". Where does that leave the whistleblower? At the Job Centre, finding a new career or committing suicide?

2. The article then states "A second motion, proposed by junior doctors, calls on the General Medical Council to recognise formally that the harassment of whistleblowers is a serious breach of medical regulations. It also requests guidance on whistle-blowing"

So what happens if the GMC is doing the harassment ? Numerous whistleblowers have been referred to the GMC by their Trusts as a mode of silencing or discrediting them. The BMA want us to believe that the GMC has changed. Have they really or have they just got better at not getting caught. Leading cases on this subject are R v GMC Ex Parte Cream and Pal v GMC 2004. Other cases include Vaidya v GMC, Phipps v GMC and numerous others. Is the BMA going to tell the world that once whistleblowers are referred to the GMC, they have to spend years vindicating themselves through the courts etc. 

What we all want to know is can the BMA reassure the doctors in the UK that they will always provide legal support for whistleblowers? The past always dictates the future - everyone can read my experiences with the BMA here. It should be noted that in 1998, I was not outspoken, I wasn't a blogger and I wasn't controversial. I simply asked the BMA for assistance and they essentially refused it. The original scans of the internal documents obtained under the Data Protection Act 1998  were uploaded here.Due to this spectacular failure by the BMA and my efforts to expose them, the BMJ has been less than friendly. I can understand why, it can't be easy to watch their dirty linen in the public arena just to show how inadequate they are as a organisation. One doctor eloquently described the BMA

"One of the reasons for BMA to be so prejudicial against doctors from ethnic minorities is the non-availability of any parallel and robust Trade Union which could genuinely speak for doctors indiscrimnately and not be a part of establishment. I suggest someone should come up with some ideas of a new Trade Union and i am sure a lot of doctors will leave the BMA and join it. To my experience, BMA advisers have minimal knowledge of their expertise and at times give false and incorrect information, may have some affliations/friendships with some Trusts and do not declare conflict of interest"

My advice - don't whistleblow. I believed the hype on protection of whistleblowers after the Bristol Inquiry and consequently found the system was painfully dysfunctional. I can imagine many young green doctors naively believing the system is set up to protect them. The stigma of whistleblowing is probably worse than having HIV.  I can probably stand it because I just don't rate the sort of people wallowing around the establishment.

The NHS machinery is also staffed with dysfunctional people who have variable agendas. The BMA is part of the establishment's machinery specifically designed to obstruct the whistleblower. There is no whistleblower who has stated anything positive about BMA representation. It is time the BMA owned up to its flaws and its failures in representing doctors.

What is said in public is not what is done in reality.Every doctor should understand this vital rule in the BMA's PR games. The trade union is  failure and largely up its own ar**. This is why it has a journal with the same kind of dysfunctional, mentally inept, socially incompetent editors wanting to control its population of doctors. This is of course part of the BMA's insecurity. They must keep the medical profession in check. They can't have independent thinkers or rebels who see right through their prissy fake appearances.

From The Times

June 27, 2009 
Whistleblower helpline for doctors as concerns for patient safety grow

Sam Lister, Health Editor

Hospital doctors wanting to raise fears about patient safety are to be given an anonymous “whistleblower” helpline because of growing evidence of staff reluctance to speak out for fear of recriminations. 

The dedicated phoneline has been set up as part of new guidelines issued by the British Medical Association, and seen by The Times, designed to help to formalise the process of “whistleblowing” in the NHS. 

Doctors will be presented with two motions at the BMA annual conference next week calling for action to address staff concerns about reporting malpractice. 

One motion, proposed by the BMA’s agenda committee, warns that the NHS risks another patient safety scandal like that of Mid-Staffordshire where 400 deaths were linked to poor care, such is the scale of the problem. It calls for trusts and regulators to pool all complaints from clinicians to identify worrying trends.

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A second motion, proposed by junior doctors, calls on the General Medical Council to recognise formally that the harassment of whistleblowers is a serious breach of medical regulations. It also requests guidance on whistle-blowing. 

Tom Dolphin, a junior doctor specialising in anaesthesia based in East London, said he had felt compelled to act after hearing of the experiences of colleagues who had to work without some patient-monitoring equipment. 

“One colleague needed equipment that wasn’t there, and was told there wasn’t any. There can be a culture of ‘that’s the way it's always been and no one’s come to harm yet anyway’. Others tried to raise concerns, got nowhere and had pretty much given up.” 

The BMA guidelines, released today, follow research suggesting hospital doctors are frequently frustrated in their attempts to raise concerns about standards of care, despite recommendations by the Department of Health for the development of whistleblowing policies six years ago. 

A survey of 565 doctors working in hospitals in England and Wales found that three quarters had had concerns about issues relating to patient safety, malpractice or bullying in the NHS, the majority linked to standards of patient care. 

Many said that their experiences of reporting issues had been negative — either because they were ignored or because their complaint was shared more widely than they were comfortable with. One in six doctors who reported concerns said that their trusts had indicated that their employment could be negatively affected. 

The BMA advises hospital doctors to err on the side of raising any concerns about malpractice or systemic failures, and to do it as soon as they can, rather than allowing the situation to reach a point where patient safety is threatened. It points out that employees who are victimised after raising their concerns can go to an employment tribunal, and that employers can be heavily fined. 

“If told not to raise or pursue any concern, even by a person in authority such as a manager, you should not agree to remain silent,” it states, adding that “raising concerns is not just a matter of personal conscience — in some circumstances it is a professional obligation”. 

Last month Jonathan Fielden, the chairman of the BMA consultants committee, called for sweeping changes to reporting problems in the NHS. He said that “a culture of inactivity and despair is preventing issues from coming to light, and putting patient care at risk”. 

Margaret Haywood, a nurse, is appealing to the High Court against a decision by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to strike her off the register for secretly filming at a Brighton hospital. Footage showed examples of neglect, including an elderly patient sitting in clothes he had soiled the night before. 

Earlier this month the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) called for greater reporting of safety issues in hospitals in a report on paediatric healthcare. It said that 10,000 alerts over medication given to children were being issued annually in the NHS, including errors in the calculation of drug doses and health workers forgetting to give patients their medicine. The NPSA report concludes that over the period of a year 33 children and 39 newborn babies died with “indicators of avoidable factors”.