Junior doctors lobby at Stormont

From Mmc

A group of junior doctors plans to lobby politicians at Stormont later to protest at plans to cut their time as junior doctors.

Northern Irish Medics is concerned that the scheme reduces training time.

The scheme - Modernising Medical Careers - means specialising too early, they argued.

"Our concern is partly that people are having to choose specialities very early without the actual experience to do so," Dr Christine Hughes said.

She said that if very good candidates did not get into the process at the beginning, it could be very difficult for them to access it.

"The other concern is with the number of training posts that are available," she said.

"There are a lot of people who, if they don't get into this process, are then moved out into trust grade jobs where they no longer are in training and no longer have the oppportunity to come forward as a consultant."

Dr Hughes said a reduction in hours worked and in training time would mean that new doctors were coming out as narrowly trained specialists, having been fast tracked through a process, without the breadth of training to be a "fully-trained consultant".

Westminster

The doctors are asking NI politicians to lobby at Westminster and call a halt to the Modernising Medical Careers scheme.

Traditionally, junior doctors go through three stages of training - pre-registration house officer, senior house officer and finally specialist registrar.

Under the government's 'Modernising Medical Careers' reforms there are now just two training phases - a two-year foundation programme followed by a specialist training programme.

The aim is to speed up the training of doctors. Under the new system it would be possible to achieve a consultant post after 11 years, rather than 14 years.

However, the British Medical Association is concerned that the scheme would mean thousands of doctors could be forced to leave the country because of lack of opportunity in the National Health Service.