BMA to vote to 'disavow' the Cass review

Are there any UK Doctors/Admins on here?

Does central govt provide professional indemnity/liability insurance?

I'm just puzzled that the big reinsurance companies seem fairly quiet, though I suspect that the impact of each misdemeanour is diversified (i.e a tiny % to each co picking up the bill).

Deputy chair Emma Runswick’s twitter. Pronouns and a thread criticising Wes Streeting on puberty blockers…

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some back handers going on.

Another captured union. What a surprise!

I would guess someone fed up at the BMA put Hannah Barnes on to it.

Most doctors would rather stab themselves to death than go to a union meeting so those that do go tend to be people who enjoy student politics.

To think the BMA just used to irritate by calling for a ban on boxing.

(Them being the lunatic fringe, not the fine GC types)

Another WTF from me.

Really hope this is just a lunatic fringe issue. Could @Neurodiversitydoctor please rally her GC medic colleagues and chloroform them before they go too far?

https://www.bma.org.uk/about-us/about-the-bma/how-we-work/leadership-at-the-bma

First photo, jacket off (unporfessional) to reveal rainbow braces.

The BMA is a union though rather than a 'Royal College' isn't it? And as such is very political? Take the immediate ending of the strikes even though they (leaders of BMA, not ordiniary doctors) know Labour has no more the money to pay them 35% than the Conservatives did. It is medicine by student-level politics. So I guess we should not be surprised.

Great piece by Hannah Barnes thought. Thanks for posting OP.

I don’t know how the BMA governance works

https://www.bma.org.uk/about-us/about-the-bma/how-we-work/leadership-at-the-bma

but Dr Emma Runswick is deputy chair of council & her Twitter is interesting!

x.com/erunswickbma/status/1812563833950511133?s=46&t=aWQLrPtVicDNf6MQpq5WVg

I think we should look out for people called sue.

Seriously when chickens come home to roost you do not want your name anywhere near this shit show for the claims that will come.

@Firtreeandpinecones Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association

Can't recommend them highly enough

I'm not sure if Unite have views on trans activism but, as others have said, I just wanted to be in a Union to represent my employment rights and really don't share most of the BMAs political views. (I resigned largely over the consultant strike because I was sick of getting pestered to support something that I don't agree with).

Ordinary members haven’t been invited to vote. It’s odd that this is being done like this - it was not included at the ARM (annual meeting of BMA reps) a few weeks ago, or AGM (which is more about procedure, and all members can vote).

I’m surprised the BMA is doing this. Or maybe it is at the stage where putting it to an anonymous vote is the only way through an impasse? In which case one would hope for reason to prevail…

This.

Pretty much all the teaching unions come out with total bonkers, especially on this topic.

I'm a teacher but I just don't have the armour to go into battle. I pay my subs as an insurance for legal expenses if I ever need it.

I'm fed up with my union, the biggest teaching union in the uk I believe. I could go on and on about their bonkers and sometimes downright dangerous political ideas. They don't represent me at all. I use them purely for legal expenses insurance. I imagine some doctors use their BMA membership the same way.

Is Unite better on this issue?

WTF?!

I'm afraid I resigned from the BMA and joined Unite as they have not represented my views for a while.

We know the education unions are in thrall to this ideology. But I’d be surprised at the BMA. My late father was active in the BMA, he would be turning in his grave if this happened.

@AnnaMagnani are you in a union? And if so, would you mind saying which one?

Words fail me. Ugh.

Interesting that the BMA doesn't have a majority of doctors belonging to it, though.

The motion, first drafted as an emergency measure in June, was not discussed at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) last month.
^^
BMA rules would suggest that for it now to be going to the union’s governing body, the proposal has gained the support of at least 10 members – about one in six – of the BMA’s Council in the intervening weeks. That makes it eligible to be voted on.

Does the BMA have any rules which permit its membership to call for an emergency vote of no confidence in its governing body?

The governing body of the BMA

So it’s not the membership of the BMA doing this (ie ordinary doctors), it’s the ones who were motivated to get themselves elected into a decision making position?

I am wondering, hoping, that this article is a strategic attempt to alert others to the fact that a minority group might try and get their motion accepted.

From the article:

... The motion, first drafted as an emergency measure in June, was not discussed at the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) last month.

BMA rules would suggest that for it now to be going to the union’s governing body, the proposal has gained the support of at least 10 members – about one in six – of the BMA’s Council in the intervening weeks. That makes it eligible to be voted on.

The motion alleges that the Cass Review contains “unsubstantiated recommendations driven by unexplained study protocol deviations” and is concerned at its “exclusion of trans-affirming evidence”.

It calls on the BMA to “publicly disavow the Cass Review” and to “lobby and work with other relevant organisations and stakeholders to oppose the implementation of the recommendations made by the Cass Review”.

It also calls for the union to “lobby the government and NHS in all four nations to ensure continuity in provision of transgender health care for patients younger than 18 years old”. ...

Article is behind paywall but can be read at https://archive.ph/y7G9S

Is the agenda for the meeting in the public domain?

Not a member of the BMA, largely because I wanted to join a union that focussed on employment law instead of activism.

A surprisingly large number of doctors aren't in the BMA - realised when we had to establish which juniors were striking and which weren't.

Even if you are in the BMA this probably doesn't mean much to you beyond paying your subs and occasionally ringing the helpline as yet again your trust hasn't paid you correctly.

The reps are the activists and as we have seen in so many organizations, activists don't necessarily have anything in common with members.