Saturday’s decision by the BMA (Junior doctors suspend strike plans due to ‘patient safety’ concerns, theguardian.com, 24 September) has angered junior doctors throughout the country. It was unexpected and, seemingly, unaccountable; despite about 100,000 doctors paying £400 annually to the union that represents us, no one has yet been informed of the breakdown of the vote.
In line with nationwide concerns by junior doctors, consultants and other healthcare practitioners, the Junior Doctors’ Alliance pressure group (JDA) has reaffirmed its commitment to raising public awareness about the dangers to patients in particular, and the NHS as a whole, of the new contract. In the wake of the decision to suspend the strike, it is now more vital than ever to engage in public discussion and affirmative action to ensure this contract is not imposed by health secretary Jeremy Hunt.
We aim to put pressure on the BMA to pursue new action to block the imposition of this contract, and to act as advocates for both doctors and patients alike; to seek transparency and accountability from the BMA to its members; to garner support for further negotiations with the government, and to provide our patients and the wider public with accurate information on how this new contract will devastate the NHS. We urge doctors to support us via our JDA Facebook page.
Dr James Crane, Dr Aislinn Macklin-Doherty, Dr Julia Patterson, Dr Mona Kamal Ahmed, Mr Rishi Dhir, Dr Moosa Quereshi, Dr Benjamin Janaway of the Junior Doctors’ Alliance (JDA)
• To determine the extra funding needed for the NHS (We can afford the NHS. The question is whether we are willing to pay for it, theguardian.com, 22 September), we’d have to know what state it’s in, and we don’t.
We need to collect and use data for the running of public services like the NHS in the public interest, rather than to support political rhetoric. When data is collected selectively by the Department of Health, and it no longer describes the collective experience of those using and working in the NHS, this is not in the public interest.
If we want to have an intelligent conversation about the NHS, the politics must be taken out of it. We need an independent national audit to determine the actual state the NHS is in. Only then can we begin balancing the healthcare that we, as a country, want provided and the amount we will have to pay to make it so.
Amanda Harris
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
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