Percutaneous balloon valve dilatation.

opting out would negate much of the enterprise. The public must be told repeatedly about the likely consequences of the proposals, and the BMA council has launched this exercise. And negotiation must take place-and on equal terms, with flexibility and without the duress of a short timetable which owes more to political expediency than to the issues at stake. In the negotiations the BMA and the royal colleges must speak with one voice, for any seeming division will be exploited to the full. The proliferation of colleges and faculties since 1948 makes this even more difficult, and so far their voice has not been heard. But it is important that the colleges should find tough and skilled leaders of the calibre of WebbJohnson and Moran; after all was it not Bevan who said that under their charters the royal colleges had the duty of advising the government of the day? The British public and the health professions deserve better than a return to the poor law; though normally both the BMA and the colleges and faculties have separate roles, on this occasion they must stand together.