What will happen to 13,000 jobless doctors?
From Mmc
What will happen to 13,000 jobless doctors?'
By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Last Updated: 2:13am BST 13/07/2007
Medical leaders yesterday demanded to know what will happen to 13,000 junior doctors who will not get a training post this year.
Ministers announced yesterday that 85 per cent of posts had been filled with just 2,320 left available for the next round of recruitment.
There were 16,000 junior doctors left without training posts at the end of the last round. Once the extra 1,000 training posts are filled at the end of the process in October, it will leave 13,000 doctors facing a move abroad to find work or stuck in dead-end posts that will not allow them to continue to train towards becoming a consultant or GP. advertisement
Sources at the Department of Health said that Health Secretary Alan Johnson had asked officials to look at what can be done for the unsuccessful candidates, especially those who have come through UK medical schools at a cost to the taxpayer of £250,000 each.
There are about 4,000 UK trained doctors still chasing jobs and some are expected to get posts in the second round of recruitment or among the extra 1,000 jobs created by the former health secretary Patricia Hewitt.
Dr Jo Hilborne, chairman of the British Medical Association junior doctors committee, said: "The last health secretary gave a commitment that [junior doctors] would be able to continue their NHS employment. We expect the new one to explain how he will make this a reality.
"The intention of the second round was that doctors would be able to compete for posts more fairly. Yet deadlines are coming and going very quickly, leaving people little or no time to apply."
The Government announced the figures to quell fears that there would be a shortfall of medics on the wards in August when the majority of junior doctors take up their new jobs.
The Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) was criticised for failing to take into account experience, not using applicants' CVs and asking candidates instead for recipes and creative writing pieces which were given a score.
Consultants and deaneries had to revert to a paper-based system and put in long hours to ensure doctors were interviewed and offered jobs.
In England, 29,193 junior doctors from the UK and overseas have been chasing 15,600 posts. The applicants included 13,600 UK graduates, of which 9,336 (almost 70 per cent) secured a job in round one, the Department of Health said.
The figures show that just over half the posts in teaching and research have been filled.
Tory MP Peter Bottomley said: "This is a disgraceful, biased, self-satisfied cover-up for one of the worst disasters in medical training."
