It has to be said, if only to satisfy the GMC, that the Chief Medical Officer is an excellent clinician and that I have absolutely no knowledge to imply otherwise.   Indeed, maybe he should return to clinical practice in order to obtain a firmer grasp on reality as experienced by those who actually work in the NHS rather than those who pontificate about it from the Ivory Tower of the Department of Health?  Indeed, perhaps all CMO’s should regularly have clinical sabbaticals in any of the disciplines of medicine in which they are safe to practice?  Maybe as a junior doctor?

However first class our current CMO is in his clinical practice he gives the impression of being less than good value in his present position.   As one ex-Cabinet Minister said about his own Department, he is “not fit for purpose”.  Indeed, even the Professor said in one recent speech that if he lost the confidence of the profession he would resign.  

Apparently it will be news to him but he has lost our confidence, so why is he still there?

Recently Professor Donaldson has shown a disturbing tendency to jump on any passing bandwagon and rush to the media with a “solution” to every problem.

Only a few days ago his answer to the scourge youth binge drinking was to recommend the increasing of duty on all alcohol products – a solution which would have come readily from the mind of the chief stealth taxer, Gordon Brown.   Why, I must ask, punish the vast majority of innocent people to get at the guilty?

If Donaldson had given it two seconds thought between realising the problem and opening his mouth he would have understood that one of the problems is that the young have sufficient money to carry on buying their alcohol however hard his government friends choose to tax and punish the rest of us.

Back to the drawing board, Liam.  Oh, and don’t forget Al Capone when banning alcohol completely pops into your mind!

But taxation is never far from his seemingly New Labour mindset.   The CMO is, apparently all for taxing “fat” foods as a solution for obesity.   I had thought it was for the CMO of this country to educate and advise not dictate through revenue.

Mind you, you got away with it over tobacco - even down to undercover local tobacco narks.

But dictation isn’t a new thought to Professor Donaldson – even when we die.  There’s a shortage of voluntary organ donors for transplantation, so what does the CMO demand but the right to plunder each and every body unless its owner has remembered to “opt out” of the donor scheme. It’s a bit late to be reminded when we’re dead!

In effect, the British CMO is demanding the government’s right to requisition our bodies - yours and mine - without any right of interference.  Thank you, Liam, but you and the government can keep your sticky fingers off my corpse.  OK?  Even if I do forget to opt out.

As an interesting aside, it is alright for Donaldson and Co to help themselves to my body parts when I am still alive, or nearly dead, but not alright for researchers to remove parts from the dead at post-mortem without going through all kinds of legal hurdles first.   Did you think of that, Liam?

Rapidly passing to another of this weekend’s Professorial views, cannabis.  I heard the CMO say, when asked about the six Labour Cabinet Ministers, including the Home Secretary, incidentally, who all suddenly admitted to smoking cannabis at university, I heard him say that it was perfectly all right.  They were young and they regretted it.

Does that make it right?  Were they not committing criminal acts and do not their admissions go some way to encouraging today’s youth to do the same?   I can imagine the response of the legal system to a defence of “Well, I’m young and, anyway, the Home Secretary did it”

The CMO was also asked his views about the reclassification of cannabis.  Apparently he believes it should not have been down-graded.  Pardon me, Liam, you have been in office almost ten years.   Did you have no say in its lower classification or did Blair over-rule his CMO?   And, if so, if it was a matter of such importance, why did you not resign then?  Was the impact adhesive already beginning to set?

And resign he must, but not only for the accumulation of incomprehensibles set out above but mainly for his negligent tomfoolery whilst wrecking the careers and lives of our younger doctors and their families.  Yes, these doctors are customarily misnamed as Junior Doctors but only in comparison to their seniors, the consultants.   They are not “junior” in the sense that politicians and foolish CMOs who should know better, fbelieve they can be taken advantage of.

They are doctors in their middle to late twenties who, like the majority of the population of their age, have wives and children, wives who have jobs of their own (Forgive me, female doctors, please!).  In short, all the delights of civilised citizens of this country.

To advance their chosen career they need experience within their specialty and must change jobs from time to time.

Not that that bothered this government or its CMO.  Not enough training places, or indeed enough jobs, at all?  So what, says Liam.   This doctor wants to be an ophthalmic surgeon?  No matter, says the CMO’s system, send him to Glasgow to do Pathology.  But he lives in York and his wife works there and he has a house there.  So f***ing what? Send him anyway”.    There’s no jobs for ten thousand doctors, sir.   “Well, send the b*ggers abroad.  A bit of voluntary work will do them good”.

And so it goes on.

Yes, too late, the system has been altered but it shouldn’t have been changed in the first place. You were given sufficient warning of the consequences which have now been visited on thousands of your young colleagues.

Still there are thousands of jobless, anxious and, in many cases, depressed and suicidal young doctors out there wondering why the devil they bothered working for years and putting themselves into huge debt for a medical degree.  And, of course, wondering how they will pay their mortgage and other debts.  Many hundreds are having to leave the country to survive.

What a splendid achievement.

Donaldson belatedly has acknowledged that a mistake has been made but, like many of his political new Labour masters before him, he has sought to spin the blame onto others.  Blair and co. always glued themselves to their seats and blamed the civil service.  Liam blames the heads of the Royal Colleges. 

Sorry, old duck, the buck stops with you.  Without your support and weight the MTAS measures would not have got through.

Talking of weight, Sir Donald, you are carrying a mite too much.  Maybe you should have your pay cut so you can’t afford all the good eating you obviously enjoy.  A kind of personal “Fat Tax”.

Better still, and no “maybe” about it, you should take the ultimate pay cut by resigning.     You have lost the support of your colleagues.  Two major votes at two major BMA Conferences this summer have passed motions of loss of confidence in you.

Go, sir, whilst you have a shred of dignity left.  Don’t wait for more disasters.  You’ll not be missed.  I promise you.

Of course, all this is only a matter of my opinion and I may be completely wrong.

  (23/7/07)