BMA to ballot on Work Capability Assessments

All of this is quotes, because I am completely brainfogged at the moment and know I would completely fluff up trying to explain it myself. People one one of the Facebook M.E. groups have been kind enough to explain it for me so that I can blog it, but they wish to remain anonymous. Hopefully I can come back to this when I am a little more alert and draw my own opinions and discussion ... we shall see!

Firstly, we have breaking news:

BREAKING !!! BMA to ballot on Work Capability Assessments !!! #WCA #Atos #DWP

103 HAMPSHIRE AND ISLE OF WIGHT: That conference, in respect of work capability assessments (WCA) as performed
by ATOS Healthcare, believes that the:
(i) inadequate computer based assessments that are used have little regard to the nature or complexity of the needs of long term sick and disabled persons
(ii) WCA should end with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause
avoidable harm to some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society.

103a SCOTTISH CONFERENCE OF LMCs: That conference, in respect of work capability assessments (WCA) as performed
by ATOS Healthcare, believes that:
(i) the inadequate computer based assessments that are used have little regard to the nature or complexity of the needs of long term sick and disabled persons
(ii) the WCA should end with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not
cause avoidable harm to some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society.

The GMC will be forced to institute a full investigation and under an obligation to take action to halt the assessments by revoking "Approved Medical Status" to testing centres. The motions were submitted by the Scottish LMC Conference and Hampshire and Isle of Wight LMC. Motions 103 & 103a can be viewed here:

http://www.bma.org.uk/images/lmcconfagenda2012_tcm41-212632.pdf

Which was complete and utter gobbledigook as far as I was concerned. So I asked for clarification. This is where we believe things stand:

"In order for a health professional to work they have to register with their governing body - GMC for doctors, RCN for nurses and HPC for allied health professionals (OTs, physios, etc). On top of that, they can join other organisations and trade unions, so BMA is an organisation which represents doctors, unison is the trade union for nurses and allied professionals.

"As the GMC are the governing body, they set the standards that doctors have to meet in order to continue practising as doctors but they also set standards for the organisations which employ doctors.

"So if the GMC decide that ATOS aren't using doctors in the right way then they can remove their approval which then has repercussions for the doctors working for ATOS and looks bad for the government."

...

"GMC are there to protect ultimately the public...so if the voting is successful and become BMA policy, GMC will have no choice but to investigate not just in terms of how the doctors' operate and good medical practice but ultimately to protect the public against such practices. Without BMA and GMC backing the doctors would be vulnerable practising in ATOS centres..and that may effect things like liability insurance etc and it would be a huge blow/set back for the government and in particular the implementation of PIP."

Voting for something on this matter is taking place on May 23rd. Hopefully I'll understand it by then.