Open Letter to Secretary of State
From Mmc
The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt MP
Secretary of State for Health
Department of Health Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS
18 May 2007
Open letter
Dear Secretary of State
I have today written to all Fellows and Members of the Royal College of Anaesthetists to urge them to continue to support the continuing interview and selection process for postgraduate medical training. However, in order to ask for and secure that support for the future I wish to make it clear that from this point onwards my specialty and the medical profession as a whole will expect to see evidence that our views and advice on training and other related issues will be recorded, heeded and implemented. I cannot otherwise continue to ask anaesthetists in the United Kingdom to engage with the Department of Health on medical training and education for the benefit of our patients.
Since January this year consultants have worked hard to implement, and then to mitigate the deficiencies in the MTAS selection process despite rapidly diminishing confidence that professional concerns were being heeded. They have done this to maintain professional standards and patient safety. My council has supported my continuing membership of the review group under the chairmanship of Professor Neil Douglas for the same reasons. The interim measure recommended by the review group have had both my personal support and that of my College, Council and membership because we wished to minimise the disadvantage caused by the sequential failures of the new application process to this generation of young doctors, and the patients they will treat.
The reason for making this statement is that during the past few weeks the Department of Health has given the appearance of consulting with the Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties about MMC and MTAS, while substantially disregarding our advice; in consequence our constructive engagement is now interpreted by the profession and the public as being complicit in failure. This damages trust and relationships within the profession and with our patients, and undermines one of the key responsibilities of the Medical Royal Colleges and Faculties which is to use our expertise to set and maintain standards for the medical profession. It is the duty of government and the statutory bodies to use that expertise, not to ignore it.
The sorry events of the past few weeks at least now provide opportunity for a complete review of changes to postgraduate medical training. We therefore welcome the Independent Review under the leadership of Sir John Tooke. We will submit our views and evidence to Sir John and anticipate that on this occasion our views will be heeded.
The support of this College for the essential changes now needed to make postgraduate training fit for purpose is conditional upon your Department working collaboratively with us and the other Medical Colleges. I ask you to undertake to assure anaesthetists in the UK that you will note these views and act upon them so that we can put the unhappy first months of 2007 behind us and assist your Department in reconstructing a training system in which we can all take pride. I have no doubt that my members will continue to work towards this end with their usual diligence and expertise.
Yours sincerely
Dr Judith Hulf, PRCA PRESIDENT
18 May 2007
