Expert seven-day services opinion ‘airbrushed’ out

The British Medical Association (BMA) has claimed that the Department of Health ‘airbrushed’ out experts concerns on the controversial study which led to calls for a seven-day NHS.

Last September, a report in the British Medical Journal suggested that there were 11,000 more deaths in the NHS during the weekend than in the week each year. However, experts, including report author and NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, have since claimed that the information was ‘misused’.

A newly published email, revealed in the Daily Mirror, shows Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the Department of Health believed that the report ‘broadly’ supported the government’s plan to roll out more hospital services during the weekends, and consequently ignored expert concerns about that conclusion being drawn.

Mark Porter, BMA council chair, said: “The evidence that the government has repeatedly used misleading figures to undermine doctors and justify its pledge to increase seven-day services in the NHS becomes more irrefutable with each passing week. This email shows the DH airbrushed valid concerns and mitigating factors to spin the line which best suited its argument.

“The issue of weekend mortality rates is far more complicated than the government has portrayed, which is why the health secretary was challenged by the editor of the BMJ for his misuse of data, why leading experts raised concerns about his use of out-of-date figures on stroke survival rates, and why MPs called him out for using academically unverified and unpublished data to back up his plans. These concerns are clearly raised in the email and should have been listened to.”