Government is in “denial” over NHS funding crisis, says BMA chair

The UK government is in “denial” over the financial crisis facing the NHS and must act immediately to ease the unprecedented pressure on doctors, the BMA’s chairman of council, Mark Porter, has said.

In a speech to a BMA special representatives meeting in London on Tuesday 3 May, specially convened to discuss the crisis facing the health service, Porter warned the government that its policies on and attitudes to healthcare were driving doctors away from the UK.

Although doctors were unflinching in their commitment to patients, the government’s funding cuts, diminishing morale among doctors, and ever growing demand from patients were placing intolerable pressure on the medical workforce, he said. The NHS now “needs our hope as much as it needs our effort,” he added. “It has never needed our hope more than …