BMA annual meeting: Government is run “from cloud 9 rather than number 10,” BMA chief says

The chairman of the BMA, Mark Porter, has delivered a stinging attack on the government’s “insidious” cuts to NHS services and has urged ministers to “get real” about the current crisis in the health service.

In his keynote speech at the association’s annual representatives meeting in Liverpool this week, Porter said that the government was displaying “little grasp of reality” by expecting to make £22bn (€31bn; $35bn) worth of efficiency savings over the next five years while also paying for routine seven day working.

He criticised the government for cutting services and staff pay while raising …