Junior doctors' personal details made public in website blunder
From Mmc
Junior doctors' personal details made public in website blunder
Lee Glendinning Thursday April 26, 2007
The Department of Health has apologised after a security lapse on the junior doctors recruitment website enabled confidential information on thousands of applicants, including their sexual orientation and previous convictions, to be accessed by the public yesterday.
With the application process already beset by controversy, the security breach on the site where junior doctors apply for postgraduate medical training programmes is yet another blow to the scheme.
From at least 9am yesterday, many forms of personal information, including doctors' addresses, home phone numbers and religion, were available for eight hours on the NHS medical training website, a breach initially revealed by Channel 4 news.
The Department of Health said the problem was fixed as soon as it was brought to their attention."We apologise to any applicants whose details have been improperly accessed. This is a very serious matter and is under investigation," it said.
"This URL [website address] was made available to a strictly limited number of people making checks as part of the employment process. This information was never publicly available through the website and was only accessible for only a short period of time after details of the URL were leaked."
Junior doctors and consultants have condemned the medical training and application service (MTAS) as unfair and incompetent. The British Medical Association estimates that 34,250 doctors are competing for 18,500 posts, and consultants have refused to interview candidates because they regard the shortlisting process as unfair.
Earlier this year, the website crashed under the pressure of large numbers of junior doctors trying to apply online simultaneously, and the application period had to be extended.
Jo Hilborne, of the BMA's junior doctor committee, said there needed to be an inquiry into how the security lapse occurred, particularly as there have been concerns about the website for some time. "It hasn't been a secret that juniors' faith in this whole system has been very, very badly damaged and this isn't going to help at all."
Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, apologised for the "terrible anxiety" caused to junior doctors over the introduction of a computerised system for selecting candidates for specialist training and promised a long-term review of medical careers and, in particular, MTAS's online process.
Following a short-term review, junior doctors have been guaranteed an interview for their first-choice job.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, last night called for an urgent investigation by the information commissioner into the confidentiality breach. "There should be redress against anybody who is responsible for such a serious breach of people's data confidentiality," he said.
"It's something which clearly is going to further undermine what is already desperately low morale amongst junior doctors, many of whom have suffered considerable disadvantage to the way this system is working."
