NHS consultants last week descended on a luxurious hotel in Portugal for a conference – just days after widespread strikes brought the health service to a standstill.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that senior doctors checked in to a state-of-the-art Club Med resort in the sunny Algarve which boasts three swimming pools, a spa – and a flying trapeze school.
The extravagant trip took place in between two mass walkouts by NHS consultants – 20,741 of whom voted in favour of striking – and junior doctors. The last strike led to 130,000 cancelled operations and appointments, bringing the total number up to more than a million this year.
Despite the unprecedented NHS backlog, senior medics found time to jet off to the private resort in Da Balaia for the four-day conference where they enjoyed ‘wellbeing’ yoga classes and beach walks.
‘After your conference session, why not t-off [sic] at the neighbouring golf courses or relax in the adults-only eco pool or experience the mini-golf course or flying trapeze, to name just a few of the on-site activities available,’ organisers for the event said online.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that senior doctors checked in to a state-of-the-art Club Med resort in the sunny Algarve which boasts three swimming pools, a spa – and a flying trapeze school
Lectures took place from 8am to noon and attendees had the rest of the afternoon off to enjoy the hotel’s facilities before reconvening for drinks, an evening talk and dinner. The talks were not compulsory and a handful of doctors were seen kicking back near the pool or the buffet breakfast in the mornings. In the afternoons, many took up the chance to relax on the golden sand beach just a stone’s throw from the hotel, while the bar was a popular hangout until late at night
The event website also gushed that the resort is ‘perched up on the red cliffs of the Algarve [and] located on one of the best beaches in Portugal’ and ‘boasts amazing cuisine including delicious seafood’.
MPs criticised the ‘convenient’ timing of the conference after senior doctors walked out for two days last month – and are due to strike again from tomorrow until Thursday.
The Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Forum takes place every two years and is organised by the group Doctors Updates which says it ‘regularly welcomes more than 500 doctors from the UK and abroad’. Some 180 doctors – both from the NHS and elsewhere – are understood to have attended last week’s conference.
Tickets cost £440 for consultants, £340 for trainees, and £180 for medical students and retired practitioners – plus extra charges for flights and hotels which start at £230 a night. Some NHS Trusts allow doctors to claim up to £500 a year for educational conference tickets, while others do not, leaving consultants having to stump up the cost themselves.
Organisers of the conference advised medics to take three days study leave in order to attend, which would allow them to do so on full pay. Consultants are entitled to ten days study leave a year.
Delegates had to stay at the Club Med resort ‘due to security’. One senior consultant at a London hospital who flew out to Portugal for the conference also took part in the strike action.
Dr Helgi Johannsson, a consultant anaesthetist at Imperial College NHS Trust, said he ‘cannot look my trainees in the face if I don’t take part in this industrial action’. ‘When the ballot went out I voted to strike. I’ve been in two minds whether to go through with it, particularly with the disruption it will cause, but I’ve decided to go through with it,’ he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Dr Johannsson, who was criticised by a fellow doctor for taking part in the ‘politically motivated dispute’, gave a talk at the Doctors Updates conference in a colourful Hawaiian shirt, shorts and bare feet. Steve Brine MP, the chairman of the health and social care committee, said: ‘If this is true, patients, who seem to be only ones losing out from these ongoing BMA political strikes, will be sorely disappointed.’
Fellow Tory MP Paul Bristow, who also sits on the committee, said: ‘It seems more than just a little convenient that the consultants’ strike dates do not clash with their very nice conference in Portugal.
‘They seem happy to cancel operations and procedures patients desperately need while their sunshine break in Portugal goes ahead unimpeded by industrial action.
Despite the unprecedented NHS backlog, senior medics found time to jet off to the private resort in Da Balaia for the four-day conference where they enjoyed ‘wellbeing’ yoga classes and beach walks
‘The BMA needs to accept the fair offer from the Government and get back to work.’
In its 25th year, the conference is attended largely by consultant anaesthetists but also welcomes other medical specialities including those working in radiology, trauma and orthopaedics, plastic surgery, and general medicine.
Lectures took place from 8am to noon and attendees had the rest of the afternoon off to enjoy the hotel’s facilities before reconvening for drinks, an evening talk and dinner. The talks were not compulsory and a handful of doctors were seen kicking back near the pool or the buffet breakfast in the mornings. In the afternoons, many took up the chance to relax on the golden sand beach just a stone’s throw from the hotel, while the bar was a popular hangout until late at night.
Dr Caroline Johnson, Tory MP for Sleaford in Lincolnshire and a consultant paediatrician, said: ‘Whatever the merits of the case for increased pay, I fundamentally do not think it’s morally right for doctors to go on strike. It leads to patients suffering unnecessarily.’
In a statement, Dr Johannsson said he went on strike for only one day in September and he doesn’t intend to strike this week, nor did he claim any expenses for his Portugal trip.
He added: ‘I attended this conference in my annual leave at no cost to the NHS. The content of the conference was highly educational and the ability to connect face-to-face with so many of my colleagues was extremely valuable. Covid and staff shortages have had long-lasting effects on us and the ability to interact in a comfortable environment has been very healing.’
NHS consultants and junior doctors will stage a joint 72-hour strike from tomorrow, plunging the crisis-hit health services into fresh chaos with further delays to operations and appointments cancelled.
After last month’s unprecedented joint action by consultants and junior doctors, it emerged that more than a million treatments and appointments have had to be cancelled in England since December when NHS action started. But while the large-scale walkouts by nurses, ambulance staff and physios all ended in early summer, the dispute with the hardline BMA has continued, spelling misery for millions of patients.
Doctor walkouts have caused most of the disruption during 22 days of strike action by junior doctors and six by consultants so far this year. This week’s joint three-day action is certain to worsen waiting times and compound anxiety for patients.
A spokesman for Doctors Updates said the Portugal conference dates were agreed a year in advance, adding: ‘UK doctors have a duty to maintain their skills and education as part of their continuing professional development, and have leave allocated to undertake this.
‘NHS Trusts and boards have their own study leave and continuous professional development policies, most will cover the registration fee, and the majority of doctors cover all additional expenses themselves or use their own money to pay the registration fee and all other expenses, with many using their annual leave allowance to attend.’
The next conference, for a number of medical specialities, is already organised for January in the up-market Alpine ski resort of Val-d’Isere – a favourite among millionaires, celebrities, and the Royal Family – and registrations have already opened.
Lauren, 36: I’ve now been waiting for TWO YEARS, and my fertility is at risk
By Daisy Graham-Brown
The devastating toll of striking doctors has led to more than a million NHS treatments and appointments being cancelled in England this year.
With the relentless walkouts thought to have cost the NHS £1billlion so far in cover for absent staff, the number of cancellations is set to rise even further as junior doctors and consultants begin three days of joint strikes from tomorrow.
And while the true scale of the disruption is likely to be far greater as hospital bosses are forced to avoid scheduling care on strike days, official figures from NHS England last week confirmed that the grim milestone of one million cancellations had been reached.
It comes as a record number of 7.7 million people are waiting for hospital treatment. Lauren Golding, 36, a construction worker from Essex, is waiting for a diagnosis following sudden hair loss and stomach pains two years ago. She was due to see a doctor last Wednesday but has been forced to wait six weeks for a new appointment. ‘I think we’ve become a number now because there’s so many people in the queue,’ she said.
Without a formal diagnosis of her condition, she fears her fertility is at risk.
Tina Prior, 47, from Cambridgeshire, said her 79-year-old mother was given only six days’ notice last month that her brain surgery had been postponed. She said a benign tumour on the bottom of her mother’s brain was pushing on her optic nerve, potentially risking her eyesight, and that she had been ‘left in limbo’ with no new date for the operation. Shaun Howe, 53, a delivery driver from the Isle of Wight, developed an infection in his knee replacement and now has to wait four weeks to be seen after his appointment on Friday was cancelled.
Mr Howe said: ‘These people that are not very well in hospitals, and need these things done to them – all of a sudden that could get put back a day, but that could be a life.’
British Medical Association council chairman Professor Phil Banfield said: ‘These strikes are about the long-term sustainability of the NHS and ensuring there are trained doctors around to care for all patients in the future.
‘The longer the Government buries its head in the sand, the more both strikes and waiting lists cost the public purse.’
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com
