Doctor's online system to be ditched
Updated on 15 May 2007
We interview the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt over the crisis surrounding the appointment of thousands of junior doctors.
The new Medical Training Application Service - was heralded by the government as an 'agent of change', designed to establish a fairer, more transparent system for recruiting the next generation of specialist medics.
But for weeks now it's been ridiculed within medical circles for effectively deselecting some of the brightest junior doctors.
And for being so transparent that - at one point - it actually left all the personal details of thousands of medics - including their sexual orientation - sitting on a website for all to see.
A gross security breach exposed by this programme - and now - as the Secretary of State revealed today - subject to a possible police investigation.
In a written ministerial statement she said:
"Action has been taken by the contractor... to address the weaknesses identified. Because the investigation has made it clear that criminal offences may have been committed the... analysis and report have been given to the police." - Recruitment to Medical Training, Ministerial statement.
Patricia Hewitt Interview
Watch Jon Snow's interview with Patricia Hewitt live on Channel 4 News here.
Watch the interview
Even more embarrassing for the health secretary this morning was the admission that her department's new £6.3 million medical recruitment system was effectively being shelved.
"Given the continuing concerns of junior doctors about MTAS, the sytem 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...
The review group has agreed that...further recruitment will be locally planned and managed by the deaneries." - Recruitment to Medical Training, Ministerial statement
A bit of a coup, you'd think, for the group of junior doctors who mobilised 6 months ago specifically with a remit to discredit MTAS.
Not so, they said. the damage has already been done. The new recruitment strategy came in for criticism earlier this year when it emerged that there simply weren't enough training posts available.
Humphrey Hodgson interview
We were joined by Humphrey Hodgson, Professor of Medicine at the Royal Free and University College School of Medicine, and a member of the group of senior consultants who wrote in today's 'Lancet' calling for the suspension of MTAS.
Watch the interview here
A leaked document from NHS Employers revealed that the charity VSO had been approached by the government - the problem they said was an excess of applicants for training posts over places, by about 10,000. One junior doctor told channel 4 news he was off to Ireland to finish his training.
By March it became clear that very good candidates like Salima Dhalla - an experienced doctor with two degrees - weren't being short listed for interview.
The BMA declared the system unfair. Thousands protested in London and Glasgow and Patricia Hewitt - who'd already announced a review of MTAS - began saying sorry.
Her final apology followed Channel 4 News's revelation on 25 April of a major breach of security on the MTAS website.
Intimate confidential details of medical students openly available to the public. The next day Channel 4 news exposed another MTAS security breach. This time over students able to read each other's confidential files. The government suspended the website.
The question is why did it take them over 24 hours to do so on a matter of such sensitivity?
In the face of an increasingly indignant junior doctor lobby, Patricia Hewitt announced that thousands more interviews would be made available for those seeking training posts this August.
But in Scotland chaos ensued - as Channel 4 News revealed how employers were desperately emailing candidates to ask them if they were supposed to be being interviewed.
The programme's revealed how further data problems have stalled a number of candidates applications on the erroneous grounds that they were immigrant workers and last night, on Channel 4 News, consultants finally went public about the pressure this was having on patient care.
Finally, the latest error brought to our attention: An email sent out by Wessex deanery congratulating the candidates on their application.
Half an hour later 31 of those contacted were told it had been only a draft email sent in error. They hadn't in fact got the job.
