Online doctor application system abandoned
From Mmc
Online doctor application system abandoned
Published: 15 May 2007
The Government is abandoning its online application system for junior doctors, it was announced today. The highly controversial Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) has been beset by problems. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said all initial offers under round one of the system will be made to doctors in the next few weeks. But MTAS will no longer be used for round two of the recruitment process. Only doctors who have been unsuccessful in round one will go on to round two of the process. Round two will now be CV-based, with junior doctors applying to individual deaneries who oversee training at a local level. Ms Hewitt said in a written statement that round one will close in late June. She added: "Given the continuing concerns of junior doctors about MTAS, the system will not be used for matching candidates to training posts, but will continue to be used for national monitoring." A report detailing alleged security breaches of the online recruitment system for junior doctors has also been passed to the police, Ms Hewitt said. She said a review of the MTAS system had shown that "criminal offences may have been committed" with regard to the site. The alleged breaches are thought to relate to how personal information about junior doctors came to be seen by reporters. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said of the announcement: "This is a massive and embarrassing admission of failure. "Having stubbornly persisted with the current system despite calls for its abandonment, Patricia Hewitt is now dropping it one day before court proceedings begin into its fairness. "This suggests no confidence in a system she has been forced to defend in the House of Commons four times. This shambles is sadly symptomatic of the Government's incompetent stewardship of the NHS. "The massive disruption caused could have been avoided if the Government had listened to health professionals' warnings at the start. "Ministers instead ploughed on regardless with a doomed system, threatening the careers of young doctors and causing serious concern to patients. "Patricia Hewitt should come before the House of Commons once again to address the many questions that remain unanswered about this fiasco." Dr Andrew Rowland, vice chairman of the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee, said: "The Department of Health has at last seen sense and effectively abandoned the unfair, discredited and shambolic MTAS system. "Junior doctors have suffered blow after blow because of the Government's terrible handling of these reforms. "They have had to go through months of anxiety about their NHS careers and, on top of that, have potentially had their personal details exposed on the MTAS website. "We are extremely concerned that the Health Secretary believes criminal offences may have been committed as a result of security breaches." The campaign group Remedy UK has launched a legal challenge and aims to get the entire MTAS recruitment system scrapped. But the Government and the BMA have said they want to see through round one. Any move to scrap the entire system was rejected at the recent BMA conference of junior doctors. Dr Rowland said: "In the coming weeks junior doctors will either be offered long-term jobs or have opportunities to submit multiple applications through the traditional CV-based system. "Some people have called for the system to be scrapped altogether and for the tens of thousands of interviews that have taken place to be written off. This would be disastrous for doctors, for patients, and for the NHS. "These offers represent the only hope for thousands of doctors of having decent NHS careers, and the only realistic way of ensuring enough of them are in post on 1 August. "Forcing people to re-apply for jobs through yet another new and untested system would be unfair on the junior doctors and consultants who have had to spend huge amounts of time and energy on MTAS."
