Row goes on as 30,000 doctors start new jobs
From Mmc
Row goes on as 30,000 doctors start new jobs
Health chiefs say patient care not disrupted
- BMA says hospitals facing 'a catalogue of problems'
- John Carvel, social affairs editor Thursday August 2, 2007
About 30,000 junior doctors moved into new NHS posts across Britain yesterday without the disruption to patient care forecast by the British Medical Association, health service chiefs claimed last night.
Sian Thomas, deputy director of NHS Employers, said able candidates had been appointed to hospitals throughout the country instead of clustering disproportionately in the elite metropolitan teaching hospitals. She said the decision to start all the new appointments on a single day would have to be reviewed next year. Hospitals might be able to cope more easily if the starting dates were phased, as they were in previous years.
About 30% of positions filled yesterday went to overseas graduates entitled to compete with British graduates. Patients might benefit from an open competition to appoint the best doctors from a global pool of talent, but the NHS might use its resources more effectively by progressing the careers of more home-grown medical students, Ms Thomas said.
The BMA said hospitals were encountering "a catalogue of problems" as they rushed to fill hundreds of junior doctor posts after the appointment system was plagued by errors.
Consultants were unable to plan operating lists because they had no idea which junior doctors would be on their team or what skills they would have, the BMA said. Junior doctors were forced to miss clinical commitments because of last-minute interviews, while others were not informed about their working hours.
Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, said: "We are not shroud waving, we are not saying that patients' lives will be at risk. But there will be delays and inconveniences." He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The scale of the problem is much greater than we've experienced in past years ... Add all that into the mix plus the despair, the anger and the disenchantment being experienced by our junior colleagues and it's not a very happy situation with which to run an NHS service."
Ian Wilson, deputy chairman of the BMA's consultants committee, said: "Posts have been left unfilled up to the 11th hour. It's inevitable that more operations and clinics will have to be postponed."
Tom Dolphin, deputy chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: "The situation is completely nonsensical. Doctors have been facing the real possibility of unemployment, but at the same time, trusts are cancelling operations." But Martin Marshall, deputy chief medical officer for England, said: "August is always a quiet month, which is why the junior doctor rotation happens at this time every year. The numbers involved will be higher this time, but NHS trusts are used to dealing with this issue and have plans in place to make sure services run properly."
Case study
'With most jobs you'd expect to know your salary before you start'
Chetan Majjiga, 30, started his job in a psychiatric post at the Royal Lancaster infirmary yesterday.
"I've been working as a doctor in Lanarkshire for six years and I really wanted to stay in Scotland - my brother and sister-in-law live up there and my wife works in Glasgow. But we had absolutely no choice in the matter. We were only allowed to apply to four different units [areas of the country] and I knew if I only applied in Scotland I would really cut down my chances of getting a job.
The whole application process was completely chaotic. We weren't given any support or guidance whatsoever. It wasn't the consultants' fault; they were as helpless as us, because the situation was changing on a weekly basis.
I had interviews changed and postponed on a few occasions. I flew down to London for one interview that was meant to be at 4.30 with two interviewers and ended up at 6.30 with just one. We've had to pay for our own expenses and claim it back. And although it seems trivial, particularly as there are so many people who didn't get jobs, it's just another concern.
I was finally offered a job at the Royal Lancaster infirmary, in Lancashire, as an ST4 (specialist training 4) in adult psychiatry in the last week of June. I had 48 hours to make my decision - the biggest decision I've ever taken in my life. In the end I accepted, as the only other offer I had was for a job in Cambridge. Interview by Alexandra Topping
