BMA elects new leader

pharmafile | October 29, 2003 | News story | |   

A consultant surgeon at Halton Hospital in Cheshire has been elected as new Chairman of the BMA to replace Dr Ian Bogle.

Mr James Johnson, who currently chairs the Joint Consultants Committee, says his election and the recent appointment of John Reid as Health Secretary is an opportunity to break the deadlock over the disputed consultant contract.

Last year, consultants in England and Wales rejected a new contract because they feared it gave managers too much control over their working patterns, and tough talking from previous Health Secretary Alan Milburn has soured relations between the Department of Health and doctors.

Mr Johnson told the BBC: "Let's draw a line underneath a lot of what has happened in the past. Let's work together to deliver a health service for the good of everyone working in it and for patients".

He also admitted that the BMA itself was in need of serious reform and updating, with even its own members questioning the leadership after a miscalculation nearly de-railed the new GP contract.

"The internal running of the BMA needs to be modernised. It's very much as it was 50 or even 100 years ago", he said. "I do not think it is fit for purpose now".

Mr Johnson succeeds Dr Ian Bogle, who served as Chairman from 1997, and who used his final speech to attack the Government's performance target-based running of the NHS.

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