Granger compares BMA to the National Union of Miners

NHS IT boss Richard Granger has compared the British Medical Association to the National Union of Mineworkers, describing the influential doctors’ trade union as a block to change in the NHS.

His inflamatory comments came in a New Statesman-sponsored round table on IT modernisation, in which he spoke of obstacles to the late-running £12bn NHS IT project: “There are some blocks to radical structural change. I have encountered an incredibly powerful union, comparable to the National Union of Mineworkers, and that is the British Medical Association.”

Dr Jonathan Fielden, the chair of the BMA’s consultants committee, told EHI: “I think clearly remarks like that are unhelpful, particularly when the general tenor of relations with the government are good and improving.”

He added: “I don’t think the remarks are really worthy of Richard.” He asked whether the NUM comparison was a cryptic reference to further hospital closures. “If Richard is alluding to us having all our hospitals closed, we hope he isn’t.”

In a statement CfH told EHI the NHS IT director general’s remarks were not taken from a verbatim transcript and “the full context is therefore missing”. The missing context was not supplied.

Dr Fielden, a consultant intensivist at Royal Berkshire Hospital, added the comments were unfortunate given the problems being experienced by the programme. “The CfH agenda needs friends and it needs help right now,” he observed.

“The programme is way behind schedule and significantly over budget.” He added: “Richard Granger must be under intense pressure to deliver.”

He stressed that the BMA was firmly convinced of the benefits to patients the project could deliver and was a committed partner. “The BMA have been trying to work with them indicating where there are problems.”

Dr Fielden added that it was a particular “frustration” that CfH had only sought clinical involvement on key issues such as the confidentiality of patient records “late in the day”.

Dr Richard Vautrey, GPC negotiator and its lead on IT issues, told EHI that while communication with CfH had improved “there are still times we feel our views are not being taken on board.”

He added: “The key area is around the summary record, what it will look like, what it will contain and how it will work in practice.”

In another part of the debate, Granger blamed the UK media for making the government more averse to large-scale projects with significant elements of managed risks: “Our appetite for doing things that are transformational and taking large amounts of risk is going to reduce and we will end up buying in things as commodities after other countries got them in first.” The lack of context made it unclear why he saw such a potential trend as entirely a bad thing.