The British Medical Association (BMA) – a professional organisation for doctors in the UK – is holding a special representative meeting (SRM) today (March 15) to discuss issues with the coalition government’s Health and Social Care Bill.
The agenda of the meeting includes such topics as price competition, patient confidentiality and the pace and scale of the proposed reforms – potentially the most significant overhaul of healthcare in the UK since the formation of the NHS in 1948.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chair of the BMA council, has been critical of the reform plans, with a recent poll of BMA members finding increasing concerns with the Bill’s plans to increase competition.
Motions proposed for the SRM include that the meeting ‘opposes the “Any Willing Provider” proposals in the Health Bill’ the meeting ‘calls on the BMA to oppose price competition between organisations providing NHS services and to lobby for an amendment to remove the provision for price competition in the legislation’; and the meeting ‘believes that the proposed reorganisation of the health service in England poses a great threat to medical training UK’.
The BMA has the full agenda for the meeting (PDF).
Watch a livestream of the meeting from the BMA, or keep track of #srmlive on Twitter.