It comes after Health Direct and The Daily Telegraph revealed that eight out of 10 hospitals were cancelling operations ahead of the handover and three quarters were postponing outpatients

The online Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) was abandoned in May due to technical faults and a failure to identify the best candidates.

Around 1,000 posts remain unfilled and round two of the process to fill specialist training posts will continue, under the old paper-based CV system, until October 31.

Consultants have reported being unable to plan operating lists, because they have had no idea which junior doctors will be on their team, or what skills they will have. Junior doctors have not been told the hours they will be working or what time to arrive today, or even at which hospital they will be working.

Hospital managers are having to employ expensive locums or risk shortages as doctors leave for their new jobs and some doctors have been employed in roles for which they are overqualified.

Dr Ian Wilson, deputy chairman of the BMA consultants committee, said: “Any forward planning has been impossible. It’s inevitable that more operations and clinics will have to be postponed.”

Officials at the Department of Health have been keen to point out that hospitals are well practised in planning for the August 1 changeover, which happens every year, but have acknowledged that fewer posts have been filled this year than is normal.

From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/01/ndoctors101.xml

Last week Health Direct posted: MTAS disaster- Labour’s botched NHS plan when the Medical Training Application System (MTAS) junior doctors appointment fiasco still produces fury in the health profession. Why? And how did labour’s defective system get passed in the first place?

MTAS had been problematic because the unpiloted computer system, which aimed to appoint junior doctors centrally, was deeply flawed, with problems such as application forms giving too much weight to Labour’s caring sharing touchy feely “creative writing” and too little to academic achievements and clinical experience, and too little consistency to the shortlisting process.

But junior doctors, and their senior colleagues, remain angry and unhappy about the debacle. One in five juniors affected is feeling increasingly suicidal and 94% have felt higher stress levels during the six months covering the application and interview process, according to research published in the British Medical Journal online. Hospitals have been told to be on suicide alert.

Much of this fury is due to the mismatch between training posts and applicants, and the uncertainty this is causing. Department of Health (DH) figures reveal that doctors are chasing 18,391 training posts – with 29,193 applying for 15,600 in England.

Meanwhile, it is these doctors, and their future patients, who will suffer.

On 30 Apr 07- Health Direct wondered whether amongst all of their fiascos the
MTAS- Conntender for the greatest of all Labour’s NHS failures- the Junior Doctor application system was the depth.

The crisis that is leading highly qualified junior doctors to head abroad is the result of one of the National Health Service’s all-time great administrative cock-ups. It is has left 30,000 junior doctors bitterly disillusioned and angry. But it also has big potential implications for patient care.

Do you feel happy to entrust this shower to keep all of your personal medical information- let alone the ID cards safe?