After the British Medical Association voted in support of a final say on the deal, Dr William Sapwell writes about how Brexit is a "major threat" to health services.

I have worked in the NHS for four years, I believe that free health care from cradle to grave is one of our country’s greatest achievements. But I fear Brexit threatens all of that now.

It is heart-breaking for me to see what is happening as waiting lists get longer and so many people in our health service are so stretched they no longer have the time to care for patients as well as we would like.

It’s also heartbreaking to see patients refused healthcare on the basis of where they were born.

I work in a busy teaching hospital and, on a daily basis, I witness some of the strains our system is coming under. Tens of thousands of operations were cancelled over the winter.

Far from there being £350 million a week from Europe for the NHS, the government has now admitted that leaving the single market will mean Britain’s public finances are £15 billion a year worse off – and that means less, not more money for the NHS.

There is no Brexit dividend for the NHS, only a worsening staffing crisis.

A significant percentage of UK NHS staff are from other EU or EEA nations but uncertainty over their future has seen a sharp reduction in the numbers coming here to help – and many leaving the UK all together. According to some estimates, applications from EU nurses to work in the NHS have dropped 96% since the referendum and there are now 40,000 nursing vacancies in our NHS and Brexit is only going to make that worse.

Worse still, leaving the European Medical Agency threatens to raise the prices of drugs, cause delays in patient treatment and damage our pharmaceutical industry. Leaving Euratom will affect cancer treatment in the UK where 800,000 patients rely on medical imaging with imported radioisotopes, largely from other EU countries.

Brexit was sold like a patent remedy – great claims were made but now we are in the clinic trial phase, it is plain it isn’t going to be up to the job.

The British Medical Association (BMA) this week had the chance this week to call time. I know that my profession, rightly, doesn’t like to get involved in politics. But medicine is, above all, an evidence-based profession and the evidence is in: Brexit is bad for public services, bad for our NHS and bad for patient care. Brexit will be bad for Britain’s health.

The damage Brexit threatens the NHS with is profound and we can already see the first signs of what could develop into a chronic condition.

With the government a mess, we run the risk not only of there being a bad deal, but that we get no deal at all. We desperately need to find a way out and that way is a People’s Vote.

It’s time for the BMA to speak out and make its voice heard. We back a People’s Vote on the final Brexit deal.

Dr William H Sapwell is a BMA Accredited Representative, working at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals.

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