Junior doctors lose court fight over jobs
From Mmc
Junior doctors lose court fight over jobs
Sara Gaines and agencies Wednesday May 23, 2007
Junior doctors today lost their high court battle over the government's trouble-hit system for allocating specialist training posts but a judge branded the system "disastrous".
Lawyers for the doctors' pressure group Remedy UK argued the system - the medical training application service (MTAS) - was "so conspicuously unfair as to amount to an abuse of power".
Mr Justice Goldring rejected their application for a judicial review. But he said: "The fact that the claimant has failed in what was accepted to be an unprecedented application so far as the law is concerned does not mean that many junior doctors do not have an entirely justifiable sense of grievance.
"The premature introduction of MTAS has had disastrous consequences. It was a flawed system."
The judge warned that the junior doctors could still have good grounds to appeal regarding the jobs allocated to them - or to take their cases before an employment tribunal.
Junior doctors say thousands of careers have been jeopardised by the botched introduction of MTAS.
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt faces a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons today over her handling of the affair.
Pressure has grown on her since the chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA), James Johnson, resigned suddenly at the weekend. He quit over accusations that he had sided with the government and failed to give junior doctors sufficient support.
Remedy UK said in a statement: "This is a sad day for doctors and the NHS. The judge has recognised that we have challenged an inherently unfair system, but at this late stage he is powerless to act.
"We are bitterly disappointed. His judgment accepts that the careers and lives of thousands of talented doctors in this country may be harmed. Had we won, they could have won the right to be appointed under a better system, where they could have demonstrated their true excellence."
There would be no appeal against the judgment "as the lives of 34,000 doctors have been subject to enough uncertainty in recent months", the statement said.
More than 34,000 doctors are competing for 18,500 training posts due to be filled by August, but many fear the reforms are threatening their careers.
Responding to the judgment today, Dr Jo Hilborne, chairwoman of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, said: "We hope the Department of Health will not claim this as a victory when the careers of thousands of doctors remain in doubt because of government failures. The high court is absolutely right to criticise their handling of this mess, and to point out that our concerns about it were ignored.
"The harsh fact facing us now is that there are not enough jobs. There are 12,000 doctors who will not get training posts through this system, and they must be our priority. We have demanded that the government guarantee that no doctor will be unemployed as a result of this process and called for funding for extra training posts.
"We now hope that doctors will unite to fight for these aims. The past week has been incredibly painful for the medical profession. It's time for us to start healing the wounds and move on."
The BMA has requested an urgent meeting with the health secretary to demand further action.
