An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday 5th October 2016. The President was in the chair. There were no reported deaths of members. In the Secretary’s absence, the minutes of the last meeting were read by Dr Dracass and were accepted as correct by a show of hands.
The President introduced the evening’s speaker, Dr Laurence Buckman, who spoke to the title “Ordinary GP; Extraordinary Job”. Dr Buckman considered himself to be an ordinary GP who, almost by accident, had had the opportunity to influence medical politics. He practiced in a six doctor partnership in North London and was also a GP tutor at UCL as well as an adviser to the RCGP, the BMA and the CQC. As a trainee to Dr Marks, a former Chairman of the BMA, he had become a member of his Local Medical Committee, on which he served for 30 years, and in 1997 had been elected a negotiator for the BMA. From 2007 to 2013 he had been Chair of the BMA’s General Practice Committee. In his time with the BMA he had dealt with 12 Secretaries of State for Health and had the opportunity to observe the inner workings of the civil service, especially the Department of Health. In his experience, popular TV programmes such as “Yes Minister” and “In The Thick Of It”, were more fact than fiction.
He described the history of the GPC, founded in 1911 to fight the health reforms of Lloyd George. Although long a part of the BMA, the GPC was answerable to the Conference of Local Medical Committees rather than the BMA Council and in this role it negotiated GPs pay with the DDRB, responded to government policy and looked at workforce issues, professional regulation, prescribing and education.
While often frustrated by government policy and methods, he admired career civil servants who were usually highly intelligent and expert in their sphere. Ministers, by contrast, were often short-termist, populist and influenced more by election success than by the good of the NHS. Only a few of those he had worked with had gained his admiration. During his time as chair of the GPC he had acquired a reputation for not mincing his words and was once labelled by the Daily Mail as “Red Rob with a White Coat”. This, he explained, had been a misunderstanding by the civil servants who did not appreciate that the BMA covered a spectrum of views and was not party political. Representing such a broad church had proved difficult at times but, he felt, that while he been able to do some good for the profession, it had also been fun.
Although supported by the BMA Media Unit, and undergoing training in negotiating skills, he had lost his temper during a ministerial TV interview only once, but it had resulted in the DOH avoiding ever risking a Minister appearing with him on TV again.
Dr Buckman described some of the complex issues he had had to deal with as well as more humorous ones. Negotiation, he said, was like a consultation and was about the art of the possible rather than victory and vanquished. It was important to be well prepared, know the facts and to have a firm bottom line position. A “wise agreement” was ideal but was not always the one that could be sold to the profession. Sometimes the best option was to do nothing. He also explained the role of Special Advisers and some of the more convoluted methods by which government policy is announced, floated and eventually visited upon the populace.
After answering several questions from the audience, Dr Buckman was congratulated by the President on such an interesting talk and the meeting ended at 10.15pm.