Welsh Minister imposes new contract on English GPs, BMA is silent on accountability

The UK’s Department for Health & Social Care has imposed a new contract on GPs practising in England and the British Medical Association is unhappy about it.

The UK’s Minister for Care, Stephen Kinnock, presented the new contract to GPs in England with no consultation and despite concerns being raised beforehand.

The new contract commits a 1.4% real terms increase in funding which is far below what GPs in England say is needed to prevent the chronic decline in GP services that England has been seeing under British administration. But for this extra money they will have to handle all clinically urgent requests on the same day, respond to all non-urgent requests by the end of the next working day and remove quotas on the number of online requests they can accept during the working day. These are all things that patients want but they come at a cost.

What the BMA isn’t unhappy about, though, is that the UK Minister for Care is the MP for Aberafon Maesteg despite his job being devolved and nobody in England being able to hold him to account. This is probably because they themselves have steadfastly opposed attempts to reflect the reality of devolution in their own structure and still allow BMA members in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to get involved in English-only matters. There is no BMA England.

When the professional body for doctors in the UK refuses to right the wrong of unaccountability in its own organisation, how can it be expected to challenge the UK government when it does the same thing? Members of BMA Wales have no reason to try to hold Stephen Kinnock to account for what he’s doing to English GPs and as his constituents are entirely unaffected by it, they would have little to no success if they tried.

Without a devolved English Parliament, the UK will continue to impose laws and politicians on England that we have not asked for and can’t challenge through the ballot box.