The BMA needs to think carefully about its next steps. In recent weeks, it has become abundantly clear that there is more to this than just the junior doctors’ contract, or indeed the rate of pay for Saturday daytime work.
The union can walk away with the deals brokered by Sir David Dalton – which include major concessions on pay and hours – and start to work with the NHS on the wider issue of morale. Or it can continue to do its part to make junior doctors feel worse. Only one of these options will help the NHS meet the very real challenge that it faces.
Sadly, peacemakers tend not to prosper within the BMA election process. So instead they pursue macho posturing, and build up whoever is the health secretary as a hate figure.
This damages the NHS’s ability to make the changes required of any health system. Instead it lurches from battle to battle, creating alarmist headlines and huge animosity.
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