Junior Doctors (Times letters 28 May 07)
From Mmc
Junior doctors
Sir, Mr Justice Goldring has declared the process of junior doctor appointments to be disastrous and flawed. Yet no one in authority will admit responsibility or offer a remedy, least of all the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). The medical royal colleges and the new postgraduate medical training board (PMETB) should have acted, but most have been silent, or worse. We salute, then, the courage of RemedyUK, a Prague Spring among junior doctors. Our report (letter, May 14) of a democratic ballot among 3,500 doctors showed 80-95 per cent votes of no confidence in the new appointments and training schemes, and in those responsible for them.
Doctors were then stunned by two letters, not apparently from the silent CMO, but a defence of him signed by the colleges and the BMA. These threatened disciplinary action against rebels and (letter, May 17 ) repudiated the democratic opposition to the disaster with an order for doctors to unite behind the CMO’s creation.
That day, the BMA sided with the Department of Health (DoH) in court against its own members. The resulting outcry led to the swift resignation of one of its authors, the BMA’s chairman.
The judge showed admiration and sympathy for RemedyUK and asked the Secretary of State to forgo the £45,000 legal expenses award against the self-funded RemedyUK, something she spitefully refused to do.
It takes a High Court judge to assert the obvious because the judiciary is independent. By contrast, the independent doctors on a review body were outnumbered by the CMO and his staff from the DoH; and it is regarded as acceptable that someone close to the Department of Health can act as spokesperson for the royal colleges and sit on the independent body monitoring medical appointments and training.
We call for immediate separation of powers. We call on PMETB to read Mr Justice Goldring’s stinging verdict and drop its pretence that there is no evidence of flaws in the appointments process. Their denial causes injustice and blight, while taxpayers pay £2.5 billion for the privilege of losing 10,000 doctors.
MORRIS BROWN Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, Cambridge
PETER BARNES, FRS Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Imperial College, London
HUMPHREY HODGSON Vice-Dean,
RFUCMS STEVE O’RAHILLY, FRS Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, Cambridge
HUGH WATKINS Professor of Cardiology, Oxford
SIR NICHOLAS WRIGHT Warden, Queen Mary, London, and 40 others
