Six GPs were elected to the British Medical Association (BMA) council today, including a leading campaigner against NHS privatisation.
The successful candidates were:
– Dr Richard Vautrey – GP committee (GPC) deputy chair.
– Dr Sam Everington – Tower Hamlets clinical commissioning group chair.
– Dr David Bailey – Welsh GPC deputy chair.
– Dr John Chisholm – former GPC chair.
– Dr David Wrigley – Lancashire GP.
– Dr Una Coales – South London GP.
Non-GP Professor Allyson Pollock, a critic of the NHS reforms, was elected to the council after writing in her campaign statement: “If elected, I will work through the BMA to reinstate the NHS in England; restore the ministerial duty to provide health care, abolished by the Health and Social Care Act and to restore planning structures and fair terms and conditions for all staff.”
Dr Wrigley said he would attempt to keep the anti-privatisation message central to the BMA’s agenda.
He told Pulse: “I am very grateful to my UK medical colleagues for electing me onto the council. I have been a heavy campaigner over the disastrous Health and Social Care Act and plan to continue campaigning against the privatisation of the NHS in England. We will carry on getting our message across and with my colleagues I will campaign to get the BMA to fight for the NHS.”
And Dr Coates said her main objective is to campaign for the BMC to ballot GPs on “mass resignation” from the NHS GP contract.
She said: “We need to look at an alternative, perhaps with co-payment, adopting the dentist’s model of allowing GPs to offer private services alongside NHS so that income can keep the state side viable.”
The full election results are available on the BMA website.
