BMA junior doctors leave talks on recruitment system
From Mmc
For immediate release, Friday 23 March 2007
BMA junior doctors leave talks on recruitment system
The BMA’s Junior doctors Committee (JDC) has withdrawn from the review group trying to resolve failures of the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS). The decision was made because the latest solutions proposed in the group were unacceptable to the JDC.
Under the proposed solution doctors would be restricted to one interview. BMA research indicates that this could disadvantage over 11,000 doctors who have been offered more than one interview.*
The JDC believes there are now only two acceptable solutions – for all doctors to be interviewed for all the posts they applied to, or for the whole system to be replaced.
Dr Jo Hilborne, chairman of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, says:
“We have worked hard with the review group to find a solution which would select the best doctors for the right jobs in a fair way. However, we cannot sign up to what has been proposed. Restricting doctors to one interview would not be acceptable to the11,000 applicants who have already been offered more than one, and would now see these opportunities taken away.
“Anything that is not fair on junior doctors will crush morale and drive many away from the NHS. We will continue to express to the government the urgency of a solution that is acceptable to 33,000 increasingly angry doctors whose careers have been jeopardised by this shambles of a system.”
In view of the decision of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, the chairman of the BMA Consultants Committee will also cease his attendance at the review group meetings.
- Notes to editors
1433 junior doctors who had applied for posts through MTAS responded to a survey on the BMA website. 526 (37%) had been offered no interviews, 388 (27%) had been offered one, and 519 (36%) had been offered two, three, or four, and would therefore lose opportunities under the review group proposals. Extrapolated on the basis of the 33,000 total MTAS applications, this would equate to 11,880. However, it is likely that the figure is higher than this as doctors with no interview offers would be most likely to respond.
