Brighton accident and emergency (A&E) consultant Rob Galloway has made an appeal for help countering what he described as “propaganda” about the proposed new junior doctors’ contract.
After speaking at the junior doctors’ protest in London at the weekend, he made his appeal in a Facebook post.
He wrote on Sunday (18 October): “Dear Members of the Press, Anybody reading please share and tweet so that this message gets to them.
“I am a consultant in A&E and am writing to you, because I am scared for the future of my patients and asking for your help.
“The NHS is on a knife-edge and could get much worse by an unfair and unjust junior doctor contract.
“We need your help to get the truth out there, so to force the government to rethink the way they are treating the back bone of the NHS – junior doctors. Otherwise they may leave and we will not be able to care for our patients.
“Yesterday (Saturday 17 October) I spoke at the rally for the NHS organised by the junior doctors and thought we had really got the message out loud and clear. I left elated.
“But I was wrong. I overheard a conversation on the train home, which depressed me.
“A man in his twenties coming back from a rugby match said: ‘Good on Mr Hunt – it’s a disgrace doctors don’t work weekends. I read it in the paper.’ I came home in despair.
“We need your help. Government propaganda, deceits and distortions are dominating. Please hear what we have to say and get the truth out otherwise the NHS may not survive.
“A contract has been designed which will damage patient care and mean doctors will leave in their droves.
“Mr Hunt says it is about improving cover for the weekend. That is just not true. It will damage weekend care. With the existing contract you can get very good coverage at the weekend.
“Most A&E departments have their junior doctors already working more than one in two weekends and have more juniors working at the weekend than a weekday.
“But his plan is to say that normal office hours are up to 10pm including on a Saturday and not pay any supplement for these hours. How is working till 10pm on a Saturday ‘office hours’?
“This would result in a pay cuts for those who do a lot of emergency work out of ‘office hours’. How can a pay cut for working weekends increase weekend cover?
“This will put people off working in specialities like mine in A&E and damage the care I can give to patients.
“Jeremy Hunt has become the best recruiter the Australian Health service has ever had.
“Also Mr Hunt cannot be trusted. Mr Hunt says three things
- The junior doctor salary bill will not change
- We will pay people more to go into specialities like mine in A&E
- No one will have their pay cut. The three do not add up. One of these cannot be true. You cannot trust the man.
“He is the Volkswagen of politicians. Looks and sounds good but no one trusts his emissions.
“How is it right that the new contract penalises people who take time off clinical work to do research? How is right that the contract removes safeguards on juniors hours?
“How is it right that NHS workers have had five years of relative pay cuts when MPs have had a 10 per cent pay rise in this year alone?
“If you don’t believe me, what about believing his right-hand men.
“As Dan Poulter – a minister for health until a few months ago – said recently: ‘The junior doctor contract that has emerged over the summer – is very different from the one being discussed this time last year. Then there was no talk of 90-hour weeks, no talk of large numbers of junior doctors having their pay cut.’
“Mr Hunt’s arrogance and the distain in which he talks about junior doctors is making it so hard for the medical profession to work with him.
“Unless he changes his attitude and starts proper negotiations, then the junior doctors will go on strike. But a strike will be temporary. Someone will back down.
“But worse than that, because of the attitude of the Health Secretary, they will not apply for new jobs starting in August 2016 and leave the country with their skills and expertise.
“We cannot run the NHS without them. Mr Hunt is a threat to the future of the NHS.
“Mr Hunt is also affecting patient care now with his political spin. He has scared people out of coming to hospital over the weekend – the hunt effect – delayed presentation, with worsening outcomes because of political ideology.
“Good care depends on good leadership and the current leadership at the top of the Department of Health is utterly inadequate.
“Patient care is being damaged. The government are bullying NHS workers and we need your help in standing up to them.
“But the issue is larger than just about junior doctors. Much bigger. It is about a targeted attack on the whole fabric of the NHS.
“Billions wasted in reorganisation and selling contracts to the private sector, funding cuts (per patient seen) and attacks on the care we give and despicable attacks on the staff who provide that care.
“It feels like a co-ordinated plan to convince the public that the NHS is unaffordable. But the NHS was born in a time of great austerity. It cannot be destroyed in the name of austerity.
“We should remember that properly run, when patients come before profits and co-operation is key and not competition, then the NHS is the most efficient way of delivering high quality care for all.
“Political ideology should not be allowed to destroy the NHS.
“Why move to an insurance scheme such as in the USA where they spend double what we do and patients get much worse care especially the poor. Unless you are in cahoots with private sector health companies I suppose?
“Jeremey Hunt has presided over the worst fall in patient care and staff morale than any other health secretary.
“Corridor medicine is now commonplace in A&Es up and down the country and the winter crisis in the NHS is year long.
“When it comes to those at the top of the Department of Health and patients safety, never have so many, been so harmed by so few.
“And if he does not sort out the mess he has created with the junior doctor contract, things could get much much worse.
“We have to decide what we want as a society. Do we reward the bankers and speculators who have crippled the country or do we reward the doctors and nurses who heal the country? Or at least not cut their pay.
“You saw the pictures form the rally yesterday. 20,000 junior doctors and supporters chanting, ‘Save our NHS!’
“In your heart of hearts do you trust the politicians who are trained in spin and manipulation or NHS workers, who dedicate their lives to helping those in need?
“Please get the truth out. Many of you have helped get the truth out. Thank you. Others just ignore it – I can think of no bigger issue affecting the country yet the country’s papers give very little coverage.
“But others have just recycled government propaganda. I know it must be hard. For many people working in the press, your bosses are supporters of the government and I am sure they must apply pressure on you for what you write and report.
“But this is bigger than politics. This is about the future of the NHS. And The NHS doesn’t have a future without its junior doctors.
“Please help to save it. Our children will need it as much as we do.
“The NHS, which the British public care so passionately about, may soon not be able to care for them.
“Yours sincerely
“Dr Rob Galloway, A&E Consultant”
