Job deal fails to placate junior doctors
From Mmc
Job deal fails to placate junior doctors
Changes in the system used for recruiting junior doctors are "still a bit of a disaster" and could lead to more families being separated, ministers were warned today.
A solution to the long-running row over health service training posts was agreed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and medical royal colleges last night, guaranteeing all candidates for NHS specialist traineeships will get at least one interview.
Thousands of junior doctors had feared their careers would be ruined by their failure to pass a discredited online selection procedure.
Article continues Dr Tom Dolphin, of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, said the deal struck with the government was a case of "salvaging something from a disastrous system" and ensuring that "the smallest number of individuals are harmed and the smallest numbers of families broken up".
But he predicted that many families could be separated by "quite some distance" because the application regions were very broad. He also claimed that the concerns of the profession had been "ignored" for political reasons.
Last night's deal follows months of chaos for thousands of junior doctors.
A review group set up to look at the crisis said doctors in England should be guaranteed an interview for their first-choice job. Previous solutions included all candidates being offered just one interview, but the BMA said this would disadvantage thousands of doctors with more than one interview offer.
The agreement means that any doctor with four interview offers will still be able to attend them all. They will also be able to change their order of preference if they wish to in view of the likely competition for each post. Doctors not offered any interviews will now get one at their first preference.
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has apologised for the "terrible anxiety" caused to doctors by the crisis.
Dr Dolphin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This is far from perfect, but it's better than it was. The way that it is being done, people are having to choose where in the country they apply to and they are very broad geographical areas they have to choose. So although you may apply to London that would be anywhere from Milton Keynes to Brighton.
"The rotations have to cover quite a wide area because you have to cover a range of hospitals with different specialties in them. So there is a reason for them being fairly wide, but the regions are extremely wide and people are going to be separated by quite some distance, particularly if they are not in the same region."
Challenged that this was true of many jobs, he replied: "The new system is more limited in where you can apply."
Dr Dolphin added: "The concerns of the profession have been ignored really for political reasons and I can't really defend any of it and I'm not going to try. Obviously things must be pretty bad for a secretary of state to have to apologise and we are hoping things will get better, but it's still a bit of a disaster."
