Health Department ‘broke law over doctors’ job test scores’
From Mmc
Health Department ‘broke law over doctors’ job test scores’
Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor
The Department of Health has breached the Data Protection Act by refusing to reveal to junior doctors the scores they achieved in the failed Medical Training Application System (MTAS).
Many young doctors unable to get interviews in the first round of the MTAS system have applied to the department or its subsidiary bodies seeking details of the scores they were awarded to understand why they failed to be interviewed.
The response of the deaneries, the regional organisations responsible for setting up the interviews, was that MTAS was akin to an examination, and that this exempts them from providing the information until the results of the exam are complete, after the second round of interviews.
But applicants who appealed to the Information Commissioner about this interpretation of the rules have had their claims upheld. The DoH has misapplied the examination exemption, the Commissioner says, and is in breach of the Act in failing to respond to these “subject access requests” within 40 days.
“The DoH has already made an announcement of the results of the ‘examination’ by informing candidates whether or not they have been successful in obtaining an interview,” the letter from the Information Commissioner’s Office to one disgruntled doctor says.
“In these circumstances it is our view that the DoH cannot use this exemption to delay responses to subject access requests. We have made our view known to DoH and informed them that they should now take steps to respond to all the subject access requests.”
The problem is the latest to hit MTAS, a computer-based system designed to assess the merits of candidates on the basis of forms filled in online. Thousands of candidates have been refused interviews in the first round, including some with excellent academic and medical credentials.
One doctor who applied, Ross Nortley, had failed to get an interview despite winning a gold medal for achievement at medical school in Northern Ireland.
He said: “I thought I was a good candidate, but I didn’t get an interview. So I applied to see my marks.
“The reason why I did it was because I had no confidence my application form had even been looked at.
“The way the forms were marked also made it easy for a whole section to be lost. A lot of people were suspicious that this had happened.”
MTAS was finally abandoned last week, when Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, admitted that it had failed.
