BMA condemns competition and payment by results in NHS

The competitive market in the NHS and the policy of "payment by results" were both condemned by representatives at the BMA's annual meeting in Manchester .

George Rae, a BMA Council member, said that the government seemed to be "obsessed with the private sector." Payment by results, whereby hospitals are paid for operations according to a set national tariff, could only work if all parties, both public and private, were treated equally, he said.

"There must be no preferential treatment for the private sector. We must not have a competitive market that works against the NHS." Dr Rae asked the government not to dilute or fragment the health service and not to engage in superficially attractive policies with potentially damaging results.

Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist in London and a member of the BMA's consultants committee, pointed out that this government had once described the internal market as a cancer, but now favoured having a rigged market, in which independent treatment centres were given a guaranteed income.

The meeting unanimously passed a motion that said that "more emphasis should be placed on collaboration as opposed to competition," and that the new competitive market must not prejudice the NHS through any guaranteed flow of income to the private sector.

But it threw out a proposal that the BMA should join with other unions to campaign for the restoration of public and planned provision of the NHS as the only way to maintain a universal equitable healthcare system.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7507/9-b?ck=nck