Prof Heards' resignation letter
From Mmc
Professor Sir Liam Donaldson
Chief Medical Officer, DH
4 April 2007
Dear Liam
With great regret I am writing to inform you of my resignation as National Clinical Advisor to MMC.
You will know that Alan Crockard and I have worked for the last 3 years with many stakeholders to develop a strategic and operational approach to MMC in order to fulfil the high aspirations of Modernising Medical Careers. I was involved in this work from the very outset, as a member of the SHO Technical Group supporting the development of Unfinished Business and I was delighted to have the further opportunity to work on the implementation of these critical changes to postgraduate medical education. They were and remain the right thing to do for the public, for doctors in training and for the profession.
But somehow we have lost our way. The high principles of MMC - patient safety being at the forefront of all we do; trained doctors delivering most of front-line care; improved supervision and accountability to allow doctors in training to gain in their skills and confidence – have been lost in the detail and acrimony of a recruitment process which should have supported and not driven it. We are losing the goodwill of a generation of UK graduates who believed it when we said we wanted to train more UK doctors better and we are losing the goodwill of patients and of senior colleagues.
I believe that we need to step back and reassess where we are going. The Review Group has not done this strategically or with an eye to the future. The situation can be retrieved and a new direction can be found to move transition forward, but the Review Group has become so immersed in the detail that it cannot see a way ahead which will be both equitable to doctors and support the aims of MMC. Some of the core principles which Alan and I had tried to hard to embed in taking MMC forward are now lost. I find myself able to support few of the decisions that the Review Group has taken since they undermine principles which are at the core of MMC.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity and privilege of making a contribution to postgraduate medical training. I hope that your original vision of MMC will be achieved.
Yours sincerely
Professor Shelley Heard
MMC National Clinical Advisor
cc. Lord Hunt, Minister for Health
Mrs. Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Health
Dr Martin Marshall, DCMO
Mrs. Clare Chapman, Director General
the MMC team have provided a Department of Health statement on the resignation of Professor Shelley Heard:
“We can confirm that Professor Shelley Heard, MMC National Clinical Advisor, has resigned her position with the MMC team.
“Shelley has made an enormous contribution to postgraduate medical education, and her many insights will be missed.
Professor Heard said in a statement:
“We have worked for the last 3 years with many stakeholders to develop a strategic and operational approach to MMC in order to fulfil the high aspirations of Modernising Medical Careers. These principles of patient safety being at the forefront of all we do; trained doctors delivering most of front-line care; improved supervision and accountability to allow doctors in training to gain in their skills and confidence – have been lost in the detail and acrimony of a recruitment process which should have supported and not driven it.”
In a letter to Sir Liam Donaldson, she added “I hope that the original vision of MMC will be achieved.”
