Hewitt vows to learn lessons from junior doctors chaos
From Mmc
Hewitt vows to learn lessons from junior doctors chaos
Press Association Thursday May 24, 2007
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, promised extra posts for junior doctors today as she tried to recover from the crisis over their training.
Ms Hewitt told the Commons that the government needed to "learn the lessons" from the much-criticised Medical Training Application Service (MTAS).
Yesterday, medics lost a court bid to scrap MTAS, which the government effectively has shelved. A high court judge rejected an application by pressure group Remedy UK for a judicial review but said the candidates had "an entirely justifiable sense of grievance". The government has already agreed that the old CV-based system should be used for the forthcoming second round of interviews.
Today, Ms Hewitt told MPs there would be 200 additional "run-through programmes" for doctors who had already invested in training for their chosen specialities.
These 200 extra training posts will be at the ST3 entry level, meaning for those with four years of postgraduate training. They will be made available in the second round of the application process.
Further additional temporary posts - called fixed-term specialist training appointments - also will be made available, but it is unclear how many.
The Department of Health said it needed to assess how many doctors were appointable after round one but did not have jobs, and where the posts would be best placed in the NHS.
Ms Hewitt's offer is unlikely to pacify critics of MTAS. The British Medical Association (BMA) estimates that 12,000 doctors will not get a post as a result of the system.
Last night Mrs Hewitt survived a no-confidence vote tabled by the Conservatives which condemned her handling of the NHS as "serial incompetence". However, during prime minister's questions, Tony Blair refused to recommend her to his successor Gordon Brown.
Ms Hewitt also faced angry scenes in Brighton as she told midwives at the Royal College of Midwives' (RCM) annual conference yesterday of the need for closures to some maternity units.
Ms Hewitt told MPs today: "I am pleased to say that offers for the extended first round of specialist recruitment will start today. Interviews for the current round should be completed by the end of this month and all initial offers for hospital specialties will be made locally by the postgraduate deaneries, between now and June 7 2007.
"We have agreed with the review group a set of principles upon which the continued recruitment of specialist medical trainees this year will be based. These principles are fully supported by the deaneries and NHS employers.
"In addition to the extra longer-term training programmes already announced, we have accepted the recommendation of the review group to create further additional training opportunities for those junior doctors who are appointable to specialist training, but for whom training opportunities may not otherwise be available in this year's recruitment.
"We will be creating 200 additional training programmes for those doctors who have already invested several years in training for their chosen speciality. For example, it is proposed that 20 new posts will be added to the 100 already available in cardiology and 19 new posts will be added to the 30 already available in neurology."
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley accused Ms Hewitt of now being reduced to a "cypher" for the profession. He said she was having to accept Tory criticisms that she dismissed in the past.
The Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said: "The outcome of the judicial review was a hollow victory for the government. As the judge made clear, the introduction of MTAS was a disaster; it was premature, untested and flawed from the outset.
"The human and financial cost of this debacle has been huge. We urgently need an independent review by the National Audit Office into this mess and Patricia Hewitt must meet with junior doctors to counter the disillusionment that has swept through the medical profession."
