DAUK has given its support to a complaint against Wes Streeting over language he has used to criticise the BMA.\r\n\r\nThe Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK) has signed a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging him to investigate whether the Health Secretary has breached the Ministerial Code.\r\n\r\nThe complaint, from GP Dr Shan Hussain, relates to language used by Mr Streeting about the British Medical Association (BMA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Hussain said \u2018direct and personal attacks\u2019 by the Health Secretary had \u2018publicly undermined the BMA\u2019s reputation\u2019.\r\n\r\nThey may \u2018constitute a breach\u2019 of the Code of Conduct for MPs, he said.\r\n\r\nThose attacks include Mr Streeting comparing the BMA to a \u2018cartel\u2019 at the NHS Providers conference in November.\r\n\r\nAt the same conference, Mr Streeting said the BMA was \u2018no longer a professional voice for doctors\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Hussain\u2019s letter highlighted other instances. They included a recent interview with Sky News, in which Mr Streeting accused the BMA of \u2018juvenile delinquency\u2019 and behaving like \u2018moaning Minnies\u2019.\r\n\r\nDr Hussain said: \u201cAs a result of these remarks, the reputation of the BMA, a respected professional body, has been publicly undermined.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe language used was strongly derogatory, dismissive of the organisation\u2019s professional standing, and appears intended to degrade public confidence in the BMA\u2019s role.\u201d\r\n\r\nDAUK has given its backing to the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Co-chair Dr Ellen Welch said: \u201cThe attacks made by the Health Secretary on a number of occasions aren\u2019t what the public expect from their MPs, and certainly not from a secretary of state.\r\n\r\n\u201cHis comments are unnecessarily unpleasant and hostile.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe BMA is a democratic organisation and its representatives have been voted for by its membership.\r\n\r\n\u201cTherefore attacks on the BMA, such as accusing it of juvenile delinquency, are attacks on its membership of highly-trained, highly-skilled, and highly-motivated doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe support the calls for the Prime Minister to investigate whether they constitute a breach of the Code of Conduct.\u201d\r\n\r\nRead the letter in full below.\r\n\r\nAll of our committee members are volunteers. They speak to the media and campaign on the issues facing doctors in their own time. Please support their work by joining DAUK<\/a> or donating to our GoFundMe<\/a>.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[pdf-embedder url=”https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Sir-Keir-Starmer-letter.pdf” title=”Sir Keir Starmer letter”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DAUK has given its support to a complaint against Wes Streeting over language he has used to criticise the BMA. The Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[324,23,333,683],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","tag-dr-ellen-welch","tag-gp-crisis","tag-health-secretary","tag-wes-streeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}