Johnson: recruitment reform bungled
From Mmc
Johnson: recruitment reform bungled
Last Modified: 25 Jul 2007 Source: PA News
The debacle of the junior doctor recruitment process was not the Government's "finest hour", Health Secretary Alan Johnson admitted.
While the ideas on reforming medical training were good ones, something "went wrong" in applying the changes, he said.
Speaking to MPs at the Commons Health Select Committee, Mr Johnson said he hoped that in the future people would think reforming training had been the right thing to do.
But he admitted that the online recruitment part of Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) - called the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) - had left a lot of "damaged feelings".
He said: "This has not been our finest hour.The thing about MMC is that it was the right idea - everybody was behind changing the process and changing the principles.
"It went wrong somewhere between good idea and application, which needed more attention."
Round two of the recruitment process is still ongoing and the British Medical Association (BMA) estimates that many thousands of doctors will be left without a job.
Throughout the process, 29,193 junior doctors from the UK and overseas have been chasing 15,600 posts.
Mr Johnson insisted he did not expect huge problems on August 1, which is the day MMC comes into force, adding that all the indications were that trusts could cope with the changeover.
But the BMA called on NHS bosses "to tell the public how they will safeguard services and protect junior doctors' jobs" once the reforms come in. It asked 10 Strategic Health Authorities in England how many posts they expect to be unfilled, how many doctors will become unemployed and what steps they will take in the event of service gaps, but none have responded.
