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# Morale among medics, with Phil Hammond on BBC Radio Bristol

BBC Radio Bristol with Phil Hammond, 28 December 2016, 8 min 54 sec

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK_NOz3-Ics

Talking with GP-turned-broadcaster Phil Hammond about morale in the NHS: the kind of conversation a three-minute news slot never has room for.

Status: draft. The context and the transcript are awaiting approval; the transcript is built from the archive copy’s auto-captions and not yet verified against the recording.

### On the day

Phil Hammond, the GP who has spent decades broadcasting about the NHS from inside it, had me on his BBC Radio Bristol breakfast show at the end of 2016 to talk about morale among medics: the state of the profession as the junior doctors' dispute wore on, off the back of a letter more than 200 consultants had sent to NHS England and survey data showing how disillusioned the workforce had become. It ran to nearly nine minutes, the kind of conversation a three-minute news slot never has room for: two doctors talking to each other about the state of the profession, not one answering a presenter's questions to camera.

### What we discussed

This was a genuine back-and-forth, not a formal interview, so what follows groups the ground we covered rather than rendering it turn by turn throughout. Phil's questions and framing are paraphrased; my answers are my own words from the recording, lightly edited for reading clarity.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 0:00)

He opened with the numbers: more than 200 consultants had written to NHS England that month warning about plans for a seven-day NHS, in a letter organised by the Junior Doctors' Alliance; separate BMA research found almost half of doctors so disillusioned they were considering working abroad; the GMC had also reported deep concern about junior doctors' morale. What was it actually like being a young doctor in 2016? He brought me into the studio to find out.

**Dr Kishan Rees** (from the recording, 0:53)

> Very well, thank you, thanks for having me.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 0:57)

He asked me to go back to the beginning: why did I want to be a doctor in the first place?

**Dr Kishan Rees** (from the recording, 1:01)

> When I was 14 I became unwell, and I was treated for a couple of months with what was suspected to be viral encephalitis. I basically had a reaction to a malarial drug, and it's called "suicide Wednesday" when you take that drug, and I was sick. I saw how medicine could make people better, and I thought I wanted to do it.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 1:25)

Did I have any doctors in the family?

**Dr Kishan Rees** (from the recording, 1:29)

> No doctors in the family at all. I went through a state education system, where you're basically told you're not going to get the right A-levels, and therefore medical schools won't take an interest in you. But they did: Leicester took a chance on me, and I'm eternally grateful for that.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 1:46)

So I clearly had no regrets, he said, unlike a lot of junior doctors, thousands of whom had marched to raise awareness of their concerns, though the media, in his view, hadn't always wanted to take that seriously.

**Dr Kishan Rees** (from the recording, 2:20)

> I think what this dispute has shown is junior doctors have an immense amount of dedication, and we should be grateful and thankful that they're in our NHS treating patients. Nobody goes into this job thinking it's going to be easy; it's always going to be a job where demand exceeds supply. The important thing is the morale of the workforce, and the way to fix that is by thanking people rather than going to war with them.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 2:48)

He put it to Jeremy Hunt, in effect: how do you recreate working relationships where staff know that if they're in trouble, or make a mistake, they've got support?

**Dr Kishan Rees** (from the recording, 3:10)

> Otherwise we'll lose talented people who won't want to work in the NHS, and that's the danger of it. I think it's the little things: the job wears you down, like a lot of my colleagues, night, night, night, half a day shift, then lots and lots of nights, and there's no real capacity to extend that to a truly seven-day service; maternity, paediatrics and other specialties are already stretched. I always say to the consultants: I want to know the first name and the second name of your juniors, that's what distinguishes them as a human being. An outsider probably wouldn't have any idea, because I think doctors are seen as interchangeable units, and that's a real danger. It's not just about pay, Phil, I think the doctor-patient relationship is what's really at stake.

**Phil Hammond** (paraphrased, from 8:38)

He closed by teasing what was coming next: he wanted to talk to me about the film I was making, where it had come from and where it was heading.

Broadcast by BBC Radio Bristol, 28 December 2016; clip from the WatMed Media archive, my own upload. The BBC retains the rights in the broadcast. This page carries my own contributions with the presenter's questions paraphrased, credits the programme, and I will amend or remove on request.