The British Medical Association (BMA) is threatening to axe up to a third of its workforce in England as part of a major restructuring to address a significant cash crisis. The doctors' union has placed 200 of its 600 staff at risk of redundancy, triggering anxiety and fury among employees who have accused the BMA of appalling behaviour and hypocrisy.
Background and context
The disclosure comes days after resident doctors in England, who belong to the BMA, narrowly voted to accept a pay deal that will increase the salaries of the best-paid to a basic £77,348. They secured the pay rise after 15 rounds of strikes that severely disrupted NHS care and cost billions of pounds. The BMA is losing millions of pounds annually despite record membership of 200,000, partly due to its vigorous campaigns for better pay, including strikes.
The BMA's finances are so precarious that it has required £86.8 million in subsidies since 2008 from the British Medical Journal (BMJ), which it owns, to stay afloat—an average of £5.1 million per year.
Staff reaction and union involvement
Most of the 600 staff belong to the GMB trade union, which claims the BMA has breached its own HR rules over the redundancies and sought to “gag” staff from speaking out. The BMA has not informed its membership about the reorganisation or the human cost involved. A BMA source said: “BMA staff are very scared. They all think they’re going to lose their jobs. People are absolutely miserable. They’re paranoid about the threat of redundancy. It’s the worst reorganisation ever.”
One staff member added: “BMA leaders seem to think it’s one rule for them, another for everybody else. If a hospital treated its staff like this, we would come down on them like a ton of bricks, rightly.”
Restructuring details
The BMA told the Guardian that as few as 20 staff would lose their jobs, despite having discussed the possibility of up to 200 redundancies in recent talks with GMB representatives. The reorganisation aims to help the BMA focus more on its role as a trade union campaigning on pay and workplace issues, and less on its role as a professional association. For example, up to 20 of the 45 staff who help produce reports for the BMA’s board of science and board of ethics are likely to lose their jobs.
The union is also cutting the number of industrial relations officer (IRO) posts from 23.5 to 14, even though these personnel help hospital doctors negotiate disputes with NHS management and run campaigns. Senior BMA figures say axing IROs is “madness” and at odds with the union’s strategy for 2025-30, which prioritises “organising to win, campaigning to influence and enabling our success”. The BMA also plans to eliminate three of its seven heads of region.
Internal opposition
The chairs of 110 local negotiating committees condemned the planned loss of IRO and head of region posts in a letter to chief executive Rachel Podolak and deputy chair of council Dr Emma Runswick. The BMA’s consultants committee passed a motion criticising the cuts, but the BMA hierarchy prevented it from being debated at the union’s annual conference last week.
A BMA spokesperson said the changes are “important changes in how the BMA works to build on the successes of recent years and support our members [to] organise more and campaign better, especially in the workplace.” They added that while cost-cutting has reduced the deficit by £4 million, inflation has pushed it back to £5 million. “This means we need to reduce some of our fixed costs and continue to invest in sustaining our excellent membership levels.”
The spokesperson noted that final decisions have not been made, but proposals represent a reduction of around 20 full-time equivalent staff, mostly through voluntary redundancies.
Gavin Davies, a GMB senior organiser, said: “GMB is aware of the redundancies currently being proposed within the BMA. Workers are understandably worried and we will work hard to avoid compulsory redundancies and financial hardship they inevitably bring. GMB is hopeful our negotiations with the BMA will find a solution.”
