Written Ministerial Statement

From Mmc

WRITTEN MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Recruitment to Medical Training

In my oral statement on 1 May 2007 (Column 1367) I notified the House that there had been two security breaches of the medical training application service (MTAS) that arose on 25th and 26th April.

MWR Infosecurity has now completed a full security review of the MTAS system. Action has been taken by the contractor (Methods) to address the weaknesses identified. Both MWR and CESG (Communications Electronic Security Group), the national technical authority for information assurance, have confirmed that appropriate and sufficiently comprehensive action has been taken. The site was therefore re-opened last week, restricted to postgraduate deaneries only, to support the next steps in the recruitment process.

Because the investigation has made it clear that criminal offences may have been committed, the MWR analysis and report have been given to the police.

Ongoing Recruitment process

Following the recommendations of the review group chaired by Professor Neil Douglas, every eligible applicant for postgraduate medical training has now been guaranteed at least one interview for their first preference post. An additional 15,500 interviews have therefore been arranged as part of Round 1 and are now taking place. I am extremely grateful to the consultants who have made themselves available for these additional interviews. The review group met again on 9 May to consider the process of offering posts to candidates who are successful in their Round 1 applications. The group agreed that offers for the current round will be managed locally by individual deaneries, on the basis of published MMC guidance.

Offers will be made to successful candidates on a phased basis as interviews for each specialty are completed. Subject to the outcome of the current Judicial Review, the first offers for hospital specialities in England will be made on or after 21 May 2007, with all initial offers made by early June. This process of making offers will continue until late June 2007, at which time Round 1 will close, ensuring that candidates and employers have time to prepare for appointments commencing on 1 August 2007.

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.

As we have stressed before, not all training posts will be filled in the current round and there will therefore be further substantial opportunities for those who are not successful initially. The review group has agreed that this further recruitment will be locally planned and managed by the deaneries. An announcement of the process will be made shortly. Deaneries are continuing to work with the NHS and the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board to establish what additional training posts will be made available beyond the 23,000 training posts already available across the UK.