One of the UK’s best-known doctors says he has resigned from the British Medical Association (BMA) because it has “effectively encouraged young doctors to strike”.
Professor Robert Winston, a TV doctor and IVF pioneer, also said a planned five-day walkout by resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England at the end of July could lead to the death of a patient.
The Labour peer’s decision to leave the BMA on Thursday was first reported by The Times.
Asked about his decision on Sky News Breakfast on Friday morning, Professor Winston, 84, said: “I’ve got very serious concerns about the way the British Medical Association is behaving and the way it’s run… they have effectively encouraged young doctors to strike.”
Turnout for the vote was 55%, which means just under half of eligible doctors voted for strike action.
Professor Winston, who had been a member of the BMA for 60 years, continued: “It’s hardly a democratic decision, but in any case, it’s thoroughly damaging.
“It’s damaging to the doctors. It’s damaging to the profession. Most importantly, it’s damaging to patients and the risk of taking one’s work out means, inevitably, that somebody, at least somebody, will die.”
Professor Winston, 84, agreed with resident doctors that their working conditions had become worse over the years – saying many have to share a bed with someone else who is on call and that sometimes they don’t get a “decent meal” at the end of their shift.
Professor Robert Winston. Pic: PA
However, he said: “The government have done their very best to meet the doctors and what I have to say is that it’s very clear that most of us entered medicine because of the altruism involved.
“Threats of strike action have been there ever since I came in 60 years ago as a member of the BMA. But actually, like most doctors, I’ve never been on strike and would not countenance it because I do not think it’s in the best interests of anybody.”
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Professor Winston, who became a household name through his documentaries on child development, told The Times the “highly dangerous” walkout could harm people’s trust in the profession.
Earlier this week, the BMA announced that resident doctors would walk out for five consecutive days from 7am on Friday 25 July until 7am on Wednesday 30 July.
Doctors in England and Wales were awarded a 5.4% pay increase by the government, but the BMA threatened strike action following the announcement, claiming the increases did not account for historical pay freezes.
The BMA is calling for a salary increase of 29.2% to bring salaries back to “full pay restoration”. The union argues this is the level at which pay has declined in real terms since 2008, when adjusting for inflation.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting called for resident doctors to “abandon their unreasonable rush to strike” and said that NHS recovery is “fragile”.
Mr Streeting told the Commons on Thursday: “We have put the NHS on the road to recovery, but we all know that the NHS is still hanging by a thread, and that the BMA is threatening to pull it.”
Sky News has contacted the BMA for comment.
Professor Winston is based at Imperial College London and is known for pioneering treatments to improve in vitro fertilisation (IVF) – where eggs are fertilised by sperm in a laboratory setting.
His work involving IVF includes the development of pre-implantation diagnosis – which allows embryos to be screened for genetic diseases and means parents carrying faulty genes can potentially have children free of illnesses such as cystic fibrosis.
