Remedy calls for accountability

The government continues to ignore criticism and consultation, while forcing through destructive reform after destructive reform; as the political beast gets nearer to the ends of its life, it seems to be thrashing around senselessly and trying to leave as great a mark on history as possible. That mark is not going to be a good one unless we can force them off their destructive path, their time bomb of reform must be exploded away from civilians.

MTAS and MMC were catastrophic disasters, the effects of which will come home to roost over the next few years, as rotas lie seriously short staffed and the service suffers thanks to this complete lack of foresight and planning from the government. Despite all the talk of a better NHS, Darzi's codpiece of a review and the chatter about accountability; we have seen no one held to account for MTAS and MMC as yet, while doctors on the ground have the nooses around their necks tightened that little bit further thanks to the likes of revalidation and IWGC.

Remedy needs you to sign up to their call for accountability over MMC and MTAS, their letter in the Lancet is a call to arms:

"Your May 17 Editorial1 states that “many of those responsible for MMC [Modernising Medical Careers] still fail to appreciate the human damage caused by their ‘inept’ decision making”, and the Health Select Committee report2 was peppered with words such as “defective”, “unsafe”, and “disastrous”. It found that “the leadership shown by the Department of Health was totally inadequate”. Despite these highly critical accounts, not one of those responsible for this avoidable catastrophe has been brought to account for the misery they propagated.

The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson was the architect of the reform. During the project's development it became apparent that there were multiple risks, and there were calls for delay.2 These calls were ignored. Sir Liam chose not to take on a clear leadership role and has evaded responsibility for the 2007 crisis, and we concur with the British Medical Association that he should resign.

We also believe that the small elite group of senior doctors who led this project and who failed to heed these warnings when they were in a position to do so should now consider their future positions in the management of the National Health Service. The General Medical Council (GMC) has issued clear guidelines for doctors who take up management roles, and it has taken action in the past against doctors who have failed to maintain public confidence in the profession or to uphold standards in non-clinical roles. The intervention of the GMC might be necessary if we are to restore public confidence in the accountability of medicine."

You can genuinely make a difference by signing up to this on the Remedy website, simply follow this link and read what they have to say, then sign up if you are in agreement. It's about time those that love to control our every move were held to account for their rank incompetence, the hypocrisy of their safe position in their ivory towers is rather insulting to those working so hard for the patients on the ground. So get along to the Remedy site and let's try to force these political meddlers to account.