'Infighting' fears in doctor row
Updated on 04 June 2007
There is a "great danger" that the medical profession will suffer from infighting rather than solve the "shambles" in junior doctor training, the president of the British Medical Association warned today.
In an open letter to his profession printed in The Times, Professor Parveen Kumar said that when the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) failed, "the ensuing chaos caused extreme anxiety and turmoil for all those involved".
Last month the chairman of the BMA, James Johnson, was forced to resign after a letter he sent to The Times about MTAS was felt to be "insufficiently sensitive" to the problems being experienced by young doctors.
In the latest letter, Prof Kumar explained what the BMA has done, and what it intended to do to help to solve the crisis. She claimed the BMA called for a delay in the programme's implementation in the summer of 2006, which was ignored.
The BMA estimates that 12,000 doctors will not get a post as a result of the controversial training system.
Although designed to speed up the training process for becoming a consultant, it has been beset by problems, including computers crashing, doctors being given the wrong information and accusations that the recruitment process is flawed. It was also subject to an online breach of security which allowed access to confidential information including doctors' addresses and telephone numbers, previous convictions, sexual orientation and religion.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has been forced to make an embarrassing U-turn, promising the system would not be used for the second round of interviews for posts. But she survived a Tory no-confidence vote and won a High Court battle against doctors' pressure group Remedy UK over the system, which has now been effectively shelved.
In her letter, Prof Kumar said: "Over the coming weeks we will promote even more forcefully the key principles that we believe are essential for the training of our junior doctors. We do not underestimate the enormous difficulties. However there is a great danger that the profession ends up fighting amongst itself rather than doing everything we can, collectively, to find the best solution to a bad situation."
She said that the BMA is consulting members through an online survey and would be giving evidence to the Tooke Inquiry to make sure a proper system is in place for 2008.
Royal College of Surgeons president Bernard Ribeiro quit a review group for the crisis on May 26, claiming the Government was guilty of "a scandalous failure of duty to address this issue".
These news feeds are provided by an independent third party and Channel 4 is not responsible or liable to you for the same.
