Kevin McKenna

“I have worked so many Christmases and new years as a nurse in the NHS, and I know the weary dread with which so many colleagues are facing this threat of strike action, particularly against the background of a spike in respiratory illnesses. It will be devastating. In a good year without strikes, it would be bad enough. I really commend the Secretary of State for the work he has done to address what have been long-running sores in the experience of resident doctors. Some of this is genuinely transformational, and what I know a lot of clinical colleagues have been after for so long. But healthcare is a collective activity. It is the multidisciplinary team that delivers healthcare, not individual doctors or individual nurses, so can I recommend that the Secretary of State keeps focusing on that collective improvement to the NHS, as I know he has been doing? I implore everyone in the BMA who is listening: let’s just put this to bed now. It is time for everyone to have a healthy Christmas.”