Climb down over junior doctor fiasco MMC MTAS IT system
The Labour govt backed down yesterday and agreed to an immediate review of a flawed selection system that has left thousands of able young doctors without the prospect of a job and many threatening to leave the NHS. The independent review will start today and may recommend changes to the system before the current interview round has been completed.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, has come under increasing pressure from within the medical profession to review the new, online system, the selection methods and the questions candidates had to answer. In some hospitals half of junior doctors did not even get interviews for posts at the next level of their training.
Concerns about the Medical Training Application Service, (MTAS), which was introduced in January, came to a head at the weekend after The Daily Telegraph gave a voice to angry and dismayed junior and senior doctors.
On Monday night Mrs Hewitt met members of the powerful Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. She agreed that the review should take place and that the academy, which represents 14 royal colleges, would lead it.
The decision gives back to the royal colleges powers they lost over regulation of specialist medical training when Modernising Medical Careers, the new training scheme for hospital registrars, was introduced.
Prof Dame Carol Black, the academy president, said: "The academy welcomes the decision to carry out an immediate review of the Medical Training
"Shortcomings in this critical element of the Modernising Medical Careers have caused dismay and much distress. We will work with the department to ensure action is taken to remedy faults and to restore confidence."
The review will be led by Prof Neil Douglas, the vice-president of the academy and president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
The senior doctors have been given the power to identify what action is needed and when it should be taken - either before the end of the current round or before the start of the next round of job applications at the end of next month.
The British Medical Association said Mrs Hewitt had not gone far enough.
"The Government has finally been forced to address the appalling problems with this system," said Dr Jo Hilborne, the BMA junior doctors' committee chairman.
"We have been warning since last summer that these reforms were being rushed through too quickly. From the point of view of the thousands of doctors who've been messed around, given incorrect information, or denied job opportunities that they deserved, it's a shame the Government didn't listen then.
"Not only is this response too late, it also does not go far enough. While we welcome a review, the only fair solution now is for the interview process to be suspended until it can be clearly shown that no doctor has been disadvantaged as a result of the Government's mistakes".
Dr Hilborne said they were disappointed that they had not been invited to take part in the review panel.
Prof Gus McGrouther, professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Manchester, has described the new system as the "biggest crises to hit British medicine since the start of the NHS".
He said the process should be stopped altogether.
"How can we carry on interviewing in a system that they now admit is flawed? It is likely that this first round of interviews will fill most of the jobs up but it may be excluding some doctors who are better. This is unfair," he said.
On Monday senior surgeons on an interview panel in Birmingham refused to interview 80 candidates because they said the system was not fit for purpose and they could not be confident they would be choosing the right doctors for the jobs.
The Government has promised that there will be enough jobs for British-trained graduates but there were 30,000 applications for 22,000 posts.
From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/07/ndocs07.xml
Health Direct first warned over a year ago (6 Mar 06) that the MMC's computerised application was in meltdon in Junior Doctors' new IT MMC MTAS recruitment system is a disaster.
http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/2006/03/junior-doctors-new-it-mmc-recruitment.html
As it has therefore taken the labour govt a year to wake up to the IT disaster that it created, how can we be confident that it will be sorted quickly?
About as likely as John "not fit for purpose" Reid's spin yesterday about sending text messages to illegal immigrants asking them to leave. How can anyone have any confidence when the labour govt doesn't know how many people there are, what their names and addresses are let alone their correct phone numbers. Pathetic.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, has come under increasing pressure from within the medical profession to review the new, online system, the selection methods and the questions candidates had to answer. In some hospitals half of junior doctors did not even get interviews for posts at the next level of their training.
Concerns about the Medical Training Application Service, (MTAS), which was introduced in January, came to a head at the weekend after The Daily Telegraph gave a voice to angry and dismayed junior and senior doctors.
On Monday night Mrs Hewitt met members of the powerful Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. She agreed that the review should take place and that the academy, which represents 14 royal colleges, would lead it.
The decision gives back to the royal colleges powers they lost over regulation of specialist medical training when Modernising Medical Careers, the new training scheme for hospital registrars, was introduced.
Prof Dame Carol Black, the academy president, said: "The academy welcomes the decision to carry out an immediate review of the Medical Training
"Shortcomings in this critical element of the Modernising Medical Careers have caused dismay and much distress. We will work with the department to ensure action is taken to remedy faults and to restore confidence."
The review will be led by Prof Neil Douglas, the vice-president of the academy and president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
The senior doctors have been given the power to identify what action is needed and when it should be taken - either before the end of the current round or before the start of the next round of job applications at the end of next month.
The British Medical Association said Mrs Hewitt had not gone far enough.
"The Government has finally been forced to address the appalling problems with this system," said Dr Jo Hilborne, the BMA junior doctors' committee chairman.
"We have been warning since last summer that these reforms were being rushed through too quickly. From the point of view of the thousands of doctors who've been messed around, given incorrect information, or denied job opportunities that they deserved, it's a shame the Government didn't listen then.
"Not only is this response too late, it also does not go far enough. While we welcome a review, the only fair solution now is for the interview process to be suspended until it can be clearly shown that no doctor has been disadvantaged as a result of the Government's mistakes".
Dr Hilborne said they were disappointed that they had not been invited to take part in the review panel.
Prof Gus McGrouther, professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Manchester, has described the new system as the "biggest crises to hit British medicine since the start of the NHS".
He said the process should be stopped altogether.
"How can we carry on interviewing in a system that they now admit is flawed? It is likely that this first round of interviews will fill most of the jobs up but it may be excluding some doctors who are better. This is unfair," he said.
On Monday senior surgeons on an interview panel in Birmingham refused to interview 80 candidates because they said the system was not fit for purpose and they could not be confident they would be choosing the right doctors for the jobs.
The Government has promised that there will be enough jobs for British-trained graduates but there were 30,000 applications for 22,000 posts.
From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/07/ndocs07.xml
Health Direct first warned over a year ago (6 Mar 06) that the MMC's computerised application was in meltdon in Junior Doctors' new IT MMC MTAS recruitment system is a disaster.
http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/2006/03/junior-doctors-new-it-mmc-recruitment.html
As it has therefore taken the labour govt a year to wake up to the IT disaster that it created, how can we be confident that it will be sorted quickly?
About as likely as John "not fit for purpose" Reid's spin yesterday about sending text messages to illegal immigrants asking them to leave. How can anyone have any confidence when the labour govt doesn't know how many people there are, what their names and addresses are let alone their correct phone numbers. Pathetic.
Labels: Doctors, Hewitt, IT disaster, MMC, MTAS
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