The government brought us here

By Andy Blake at May 31st, 2012

If someone had told me when I joined the BMA over 13 years ago that one day I would be writing a blog about doctors taking industrial action (over anything) then I might have feared for their mental health. After all, doctors are hardly known for their militancy, and yet here we are.

Amid all the media comment, government propaganda and the astonishment of most people, let us take a moment to consider quite how badly the government must have treated the profession for tens of thousands of doctors to say they are willing to take industrial action.

BMA members have issued their trade union with a clear mandate to challenge the government’s unfair and unnecessary changes to pensions through industrial action.  A turn-out of 50% with around two thirds of doctors in each of the largest branches of practice in favour tells you all you need to know about the level of anger at the current situation.

You will not hear any triumphalism in this column, nor from the BMA or its members – let’s be clear, this is a very sad day. Doctors don’t enter medicine to take industrial action; they do so to help their patients. They are taking action very reluctantly and as a last resort.

Doctors haven’t taken any form of industrial action for nearly 40 years and the decision to do so must have been an unbelievably difficult one to take for a professional group so committed to their patients. However, you can only push people so far.

Certain sections of the media seem to think that ‘greedy doctors’ should simply roll over and accept anything that is thrown at them, so well are they paid. But doctors have never asked for better treatment, just fair treatment. How can it be fair that a doctor will have to pay twice as much as a civil servant on the same salary, for the same pension? How can it be fair that a doctor will have to work until the age of 68 when a member of the police or fire service will be able to retire with a full pension at the age of 60?

Several disingenuous comments have been made in the media.  These must be challenged:

  • Doctors are not going on strike. They will be in their usual workplaces, but providing urgent and emergency care only, on 21 June. That means that any patient who needs urgent treatment will be treated.
  • The BMA did not agree to the “proposed final offer” – we agreed to consult members, which we did. The same applies to all other health sector trade unions.
  • The BMA attended all of the ‘scheme specific discussions’ that took place prior to the final offer being made on 21 December 2011. The government refused to describe those meetings as ’negotiations’ at the time but is now attempting to do so retrospectively.

The message from doctors to the government is very clear:  We feel so let down that we are willing to take a step we haven’t taken since 1975. There is still time for you to sit down and negotiate with us in good faith for a fair deal.

 

Posted in Ballot, Day of action | 136 Comments »

Hitting you where it hurts

By Andy Blake at May 10th, 2012

You’ve probably been keeping up with the details of all the many nasty changes that the government is planning for your pension but until this month you may not have actually felt them. I’m guessing that if you have now received your April payslip then those nasty changes have started to become all too real.

Contributions increased from 1 April 2012 by 2.4% for doctors earning over £48,983 and by 1.5% for those doctors earning £26,558 – £48,982.

If you earn £50,000 per year then your income has just fallen by £100 per month (gross), if you earn £100,000 then you are now £200 worse off.

The bad news is that next April the same increase will almost certainly apply again and the following April will see a further increase of 1.2% such that doctors who currently pay 8.5% as a pension contribution will be paying an eye-watering 14.5%.

So in other words, by April 2014 a doctor earning £100,000 will be getting £500 less in their gross monthly wage packet than they were in March 2012. That’s before you take into account the removal of final salary pensions, some doctors seeing their normal pension age increasing by eight years to 68, the consumer price index replacing the retail price index as the method of pensions increase. I could go on and depressingly on…

The government likes to give the impression that it has entered into genuine negotiations (if they have then I wasn’t invited to them) and that they are willing to continue to negotiate over the increases in April 2013 and 2014.

What they are less keen on explaining is that they are unwilling to discuss whether it is acceptable to implement the increases at all given that NHS pension scheme members have historically paid some of the highest contributions in the public sector.

What’s more they have never explained why tiered contributions are at all relevant in a career average revalued earnings scheme and believe me, I’ve asked many times.

What can we do about it?  The ballot on industrial action opens on 14 May and closes on 29 May. If you are eligible, please vote, (and you should vote ‘yes, yes’ if you want to give us a mandate to take action).

If you are not eligible, you can still do something.  We’ve just launched new campaign materials to help you to help us get the vote out. What’s happening to NHS pensions is massive, and we face a massive choice – it’s too important for you not to have your say.

 

Posted in Ballot | 243 Comments »

Time for action

By Andy Blake at March 12th, 2012

By now you will know that at its recent emergency meeting BMA Council took the brave decision to ballot members on industrial action short of a strike. I say brave because this is of course a hugely difficult decision for the BMA, as it is for individual doctors, who place patient care at the centre of everything they do. We have pledged not to harm patients – our argument is with government and government only.

People often describe medicine as a vocation – understandably, because doctors devote their lives to their work. However, the government has forgotten that the NHS can only run on the good will of doctors and other staff and they have done much to erode that recently. Just four years ago, NHS workers agreed to major reforms to ensure their pension scheme is not a drain on taxpayers. The economic downturn has not altered that. Now the government wants to go back on that deal.

Last Friday the government published a Proposed Final Agreement — basically its final offer on what the NHS pension scheme will look like after 1 April 2015. The headline contents haven’t changed at all since the previous iteration of December 2012 (which the government referred to as the ’Heads of agreement’.)

So there’s basically been no movement from the offer that 84% of BMA members rejected in January, and which more than half said they’d be prepared to take industrial action over. We are still looking at a CARE scheme with an accrual rate of 1/54 of pensionable pay, the linking of the Normal Pension Age with the State Pension Age, and increases to employee contributions of 6% over the next three years.

So what next? It’s crucial that any doctors making a decision on industrial action have the facts about what it would mean for them, and we’ll be providing as much detailed information as we can ahead of a ballot.

From next week, the BMA is holding a series of roadshows and workplace events where we’ll be outlining the possible model of industrial action, and giving doctors opportunities to put any questions to BMA representatives.

It’s important that you not only come to a meeting if you can, but also spread the word. Tell your colleagues how bad the situation is and get them to see how much they will lose by visiting the modeller on our website. And assuming the government doesn’t see sense and return to meaningful talks, make sure you do everything you can to get the vote out in the ballot on industrial action.

Posted in Ballot | 229 Comments »

Taxing rumours

By Andy Blake at February 23rd, 2012

A rumour is circulating that the Treasury may soon start taxing the retirement lump sum. There was a passing reference on the Radio 4 Today Programme earlier this week.

There has also been speculation that Chancellor George Osborne could announce in the forthcoming budget that tax relief on pension contributions may be capped at basic rate.

I would hazard a guess that the second rumour is more likely to be accurate than the first.

In last year’s emergency budget, Mr Osborne announced that there would be no change to the tax-free status of retirement lump sums. That was about as good as it got for pension scheme members in a speech that also included announcements on the CPI (consumer price index) replacing the RPI (retail price index) as the method of pensions increase, and a review of the Annual Allowance and Lifetime Allowance limits – both of which were subsequently reduced.

Taxing the retirement lump sum would be a somewhat illogical action on the part of the Chancellor in my view. Presumably this couldn’t be anything other than a prospective change, as any lump sum benefit earned to date would be part of members’accrued rights and therefore protected. So the Treasury wouldn’t benefit from any short-term savings.

Providing benefits in the form of a lump sum instead of a pension is cheaper for pension schemes; especially as the valuation rate of 12:1 is so stingy.

This means that every £1 of pension you accrue (which will increase in line with CPI) can be swapped for £12 cash. You might not think that’s a very good deal if you plan on living longer than 12 years in retirement. However, in the future you may well be 80 or older after 12 years of retirement! (If you predecease your spouse they will get half of that amount for the rest of their life and possibly some provision for your children if they are under 23.)

If the government wants to make savings, they should increase the amount of tax-free savings that members can take from the NHS pension scheme.

The suggestion that tax relief could in future be limited to the basic rate is a much more real threat. Treasury secretary Danny Alexander told the Telegraph on 10 February he wanted the government to restrict pension tax relief for higher-rate taxpayers. He also suggested that this could raise £7billion per year.

Will this be announced in the budget on 21 March? My observation of this government is that they tend to threaten the worst-case scenario and subsequently announce something that isn’t quite as bad. If that is the case then they might just announce a restriction on the highest earners; 18% of pension contribution tax relief goes to those earning more than £150,000 per year (approximately 1.5% of UK taxpayers).

The interesting thing is that the Department of Health’s propaganda used to justify eye-watering increases to doctors’ pension contributions has, to date, consistently referred to contributions as being net of tax relief at the highest rate. They have even criticised the BMA for using gross contribution figures in our illustrations. A gross rate of 14.5% providing a net rate (after basic rate tax relief at 20%) of 11.6% will be harder for them to sell to scheme members than the 8.7% that they are currently quoting.

All of this is further proof that even the DH doesn’t necessarily know what the Treasury is planning to do next. It’s possible that the Treasury doesn’t either.

 

 

 

Posted in Hutton review | 130 Comments »

Sign the e-petition now

By Andy Blake at February 14th, 2012

Sorry for the lack of blogs over the last couple of weeks but we have been busier than Harry Redknapp’s legal team. Fortunately, like Harry’s football team, we have a lot of very skilful and hard-working individuals.

Since BMA members overwhelmingly rejected the pensions proposals, we’ve been doing all we can to urge the government to come back to the table with a fairer offer. At the moment, they’re unwilling to change their position, but there is still time for the government to re-open meaningful negotiations with health unions – let’s hope that they see sense.

Last week BMA pensions committee chair Alan Robertson, with the help of the BMA parliamentary unit, launched an e-petition opposing the government’s pension proposals.

The e-petition says: ‘We urge the DH, in conjunction with the governments of the devolved nations, to re-open meaningful negotiations with health unions to achieve a fair and amicable pension settlement. The NHS pension scheme is not an unfair burden on taxpayers – in fact, it is providing a large positive cash flow to the Treasury. The settlement should reflect the fact that the NHS scheme und­erwent major changes only four years ago, with staff taking on responsibility for ensuring it is sustainable in the long term.’

MPs could be forced to debate the issue in the Commons if the petition gains 100,000 signatures – as I write we’re heading for 15,000. Please complete it and ask your friends and colleagues to do likewise. We have to keep this issue at the forefront of all BMA members’ minds.

A huge amount of work is currently underway at the BMA; at each of the national offices and across our superb network of regional advisors and industrial relations officers. Preparations are being made for the emergency meeting of BMA council on 25 February and of course we are continuing to explain what the changes would mean to members and gather place of work details across the UK. Remember – it’s very easy to update your details here.

The emergency council meeting is of huge significance, as it will decide whether to ballot BMA members for industrial action and what that action might look like, should the government refuse to change its position.

The BMA will only take such steps as a last resort – we understand that for our members patient care will always be their main consideration.  However, everyone has a line and judging by the results of our pensions survey the government has overstepped it for many doctors.

Posted in E-petition, General guidance, NHS Reform | 351 Comments »

A better offer is needed

By Andy Blake at January 20th, 2012

The survey results are back and the message from BMA members to the government is clear. Their pensions proposals are unfair and unacceptable and it’s time for them to get back to the negotiating table and make a better offer.

Disappointingly, their initial response has not been to acknowledge the unprecedented strength of feeling but to use the media to suggest doctors are greedy fat cats (you’re all millionaires apparently) and to misrepresent the facts.  Most infuriatingly, Andrew Lansley claims that the BMA agreed to the offer in December, when he knows very well that all we agreed to do was to put it to our membership.  We’ve written to him to set him straight by the way.

Yet there’s no doubting the fact that doctors across the UK have demonstrated their anger about the changes.  Forty-six thousand of you (a very healthy response rate of 36%)  responded to our  survey, more than 80 per cent calling for the plans to be rejected and almost two thirds saying they are prepared to take some form of industrial action.

The impression I’ve had from roadshows is that it’s not just the attack on pensions that our members are upset about. The changes need to be seen in the context of cuts to services, massive top-down reforms and what will soon be four years of pay freezes. For many doctors they are the final straw. Especially as the NHS pension scheme was completely overhauled just four years ago to make it sustainable for the future and it is currently delivering a surplus to the Treasury.

We really hope the government will stop briefing against doctors in the press and respond constructively.  I don’t think any of you take the prospect of industrial action lightly – there hasn’t been a ballot on it for 40 years and we hope we can avoid one now.

BMA Council will meet again at the end of February to decide on options for balloting on industrial action. The government should be quite clear about the position of BMA members; they are very angry and they will not simply let this go. The BMA is fully supportive of them and will do all we can to get the fair treatment that our members deserve.

 

Posted in Pensions survey | 6,127 Comments »

Help us to help you

By Andy Blake at January 12th, 2012

Last week BMA members received a survey from us in the post.  You can also complete it online should you prefer. The deadline is midnight on Monday 16 January, so get a move on!

The survey asks you two big questions:

1. What is your attitude to the latest proposals for changes to the NHS pension scheme?

and,

2. What action would you personally be prepared to take (or support if you are a student) in pursuit of changes to the pension proposals?

We also ask if you are likely to bring forward your retirement/draw your pension early, and for your specialty, age and country of work.

If you haven’t already completed the survey then why not do it now?! It takes less than two minutes and is an opportunity for you as a BMA member to tell your trade union what you want us to do. Remember that my colleagues and myself are not the BMA — you are! So please complete the survey ASAP.

BMA council is meeting to discuss the next steps (which could of course mean industrial action) so I just can’t stress how important it is for all members to complete the survey and let us know exactly what they think. If the BMA were to ballot its members then we would need accurate place of work details, so make sure that yours are up to date.

This week we also launched Pension Tension — our new online interactive tool that shows that ‘something horrible is happening’ to your pensions. You can use it to work out how much more you’ll pay, how much longer you’ll have to work and how much less you’ll get over retirement if the government’s proposals go ahead. It’s a light-hearted way of getting over a very serious message. I wouldn’t exactly claim to be part of the twitterati (I leave that to the BMA pensions committee chair @alanjrobertson who is an expert on such things) but I have read the tweets – many of which are from junior doctors – and the feedback is fantastic.

Completing this survey is one of the most important actions that we have ever asked you to take, so please, please, please, pretty please with sugar on top, complete it now and ask, cajole or beg your colleagues to do so too.

Don’t miss the opportunity to have your say and back us to stand up to the government on this massively important issue.

 

Posted in Contributions consultation, Pensions survey | 10,553 Comments »

All I want for Christmas

By Andy Blake at December 22nd, 2011

This will be my last blog this year so I thought I’d share my Christmas list with you.  Sadly, as the announcement of the government’s final offer this week made painfully clear, Danny Alexander is not Santa Claus, so I’m not holding my breath.

First though, I’d like you to make a New Year’s Resolution.   All BMA members will be receiving a postal survey on the offer, and on what action you’d be prepared to take next, in early January.  Whatever you decide, the implications are huge.  I can’t emphasise enough how important it is that you complete the survey, and urge every doctor and medical student you know to do the same.

Back to my fantasy present list, I’d like the government to cut doctors some slack on employee contributions. They plan to increase contributions over the next three years to unprecedented levels. By 2014, a lot of doctors will be paying an eye watering 14.5%.  It can’t be right that they will have to pay twice as much as a civil servant for the same pension. If this is about high earners paying the true cost of their pensions, then why are top-ranking civil servants dodging the bullet?

The second present on my wish list is for a more realistic normal pension age.  Apparently doctors should have to work until 68.  Why is that, given that we only expect the police and fire services to work until 55?  Perhaps it’s because those jobs are stressful?  Well so is being an A&E consultant or an inner city GP.

Lest we forget, those concessionary retirement ages apply to desk-bound employees in the police and fire service.  I’m not having a go at police and fire service workers, they do an important job that few of us would wish to swap with our own. I am just pointing out the inherent anomalies in the government’s proposals. After all, the Hutton report was supposed to be about fairness.  How is this fair?  I have asked DH civil servants at least 20 times to explain differences in contribution rates and retirement ages and they’ve never been able to.  I even asked Andrew Lansley himself and he performed a sidestep that suggested that he could well appear in the next series of Strictly Come Dancing.

I’ve got lots of other presents to ask for – not least to retain the final salary pension scheme that hospital doctors were promised when they took up these posts – but my last one is a biggy.  How about conducting negotiations in good faith?  By which I mean not putting in writing the areas you say can be negotiated on and then when hours have been spent exploring them taking them off the table at the last minute?  How about not misrepresenting the trade unions’ willingness to engage by constantly bad-mouthing them in the press and making threats in the media? You probably wouldn’t believe what went on in negotiations any more than you believe in Santa Claus and his little elves.

That’s it for 2011 – have a Happy Christmas.  I’d like to say that I hope 2012 brings a better pensions environment but that’s even less likely than a White Christmas. What I can confidently predict is that the choice facing the medical profession is huge.  Make sure you have your say on what happens next.

 

Posted in Contributions consultation, Hutton review | 4,858 Comments »

Over to you

By Andy Blake at November 25th, 2011

BMA members will be given the chance to vote on whether or not they will accept changes to their pensions, following a decision by BMA Council.

The vote will be put at the conclusion of negotiations with the government, which is expected to be early next year. We will also be stepping up preparations for a possible ballot on industrial action to follow this vote, should this be necessary. Essentially, we will be asking members what they think of the government’s offer and, if they oppose it, what action they would be willing to take.

Leading up to the consultation, we will be making sure that all members are aware of what the proposed changes will mean for them. This will include an intensive workplace outreach programme to increase awareness and to help ensure members’ personal details are completely up-to-date in preparation for a potential ballot. Up-to-date details (job title, name and address of employer and normal place of work) are vital to undertake a lawful ballot of members. You can update this information here.

As we have said repeatedly, and as our modeller shows, doctors stand to be hit very hard by the proposed changes to the NHS pension scheme. Those at the start of their careers face the prospect of paying around £200,000 more in lifetime contributions, and of working for up to eight years longer.

The BMA feels that the proposed changes are unfair and unnecessary given that the NHS pension scheme was completely overhauled only three years ago. At that time, our members accepted significant increases both to their pension contributions and to the normal retirement age. We feel that these changes are so significant that it is vital that our members have their say.

Meanwhile, don’t forget to support the Day of Action on pensions on 30 November. BMA pension campaign packs containing posters, place of work postcards, badges, posters, and window stickers have been distributed to local negotiating committees, medical students committee reps and intra-school committees, and can be ordered by emailing pension-actionpack@bma.org.uk.

Finally, I would like to invite you to take part in a live pensions webcast and web chat on 29 November. BMA treasurer, and outgoing BMA pensions committee chair Andrew Dearden will be speaking about the reforms live in Edinburgh, webcast from 6.30pm, and I will simultaneously be answering questions from members via the web chat.

Posted in Day of action | 7,220 Comments »

Where do you stand on taking action?

By Andy Blake at November 21st, 2011

The pensions day of action on 30 November looks increasingly likely to herald large-scale industrial action, not just in the NHS but also across the whole public sector. Members of the largest unions – the GMB, Unison and Unite – have come out in favour of industrial action — along with many of the smaller TUC-affiliated unions.

The BMA, like the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives, is not balloting members on industrial action at this point but has not ruled it out for the future. It is encouraging doctors to show their opposition to the reforms in a range of other ways. You can order a campaign kit to get the message out, update your Facebook status, get Tweeting the hashtag #30Nov, and join forces with your local colleagues. And keep in mind that if a ballot does take place, you’ll only be able to have your say if we have up to date place of work details for you.

Meanwhile, the build-up to the day of action has revived the long-standing debate about industrial action by doctors. Some BMA members feel that they, like any other group of workers, must have the right to withdraw their labour to protect their terms and conditions of service – if only as a last resort.

Others are of the opinion that doctors should never go on strike, under any circumstances, due to the inevitable impact that this action would have on patients. Mersyside GP Andrew Mimnagh wrote a very interesting article for Pulse, in which he argues against doctors taking industrial action – citing the impact on patient care and the requirements of the 1948 Declaration of Geneva.

He is not suggesting that doctors shouldn’t be hugely angered by the government’s attacks on doctors’ pensions, saying: ‘Yes, we are the tallest poppies in the public field and, yes, other vested interests would wish to supplant our position. But let us show this for what it is: jealousy and hunger for our status without the ability, commitment and hard work to achieve it.’

So where do you stand? Would you be willing to take industrial action, or do you feel that the implications for patient care would make this an impossible choice under any circumstances?

Let us know in the comments section below, and by completing our online feedback form.

Posted in Day of action | 1,203 Comments »

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