| Modernising Medical Careers |
| The issue: |
Modernising Medical Careers
Sounds good. Doesn't seem to be working very well.
Intermediate grade junior doctors (those with around 2-5 years experience) are currently going through a new system of selection for the next step in their training. Unfortunately, this new system has been hastily brought in and the process appears to have been unfairly and innacurately carried out, with computer glitches causing applications to be "lost" and inadequate time allotted to allow them to be correctly assessed.
Up to 8,000 young doctors, who have cost somewhere in the region of £250,000 to £500,000 to train so far, will find themselves excluded from their chosen career - at best they may find employement in another branch of medicine and at worst they may find themselves without an NHS future and looking for employment abroad or in the city (outside medicine) instead.
Rather than me writing a considerable letter, more information about MMC and its shambolic implementation is already available at:
http://www.bma.org.uk/pressrel.nsf/wlu/SGOY-6YTFWP?OpenDocument&vw=wfmms
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/debate/letters/article1458927.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6411481.stm
It's also been on national TV and radio news bulletins today and it's in the papers.
I would be grateful to hear your opinion (and those of David Cameron, who should be responding to this issue as it is far and away the highest profile question on his "blog" at present) on this.
In the interest of frugality, I am happy to forgo paper correspondance and receive a reply either by email or here on your website.
Please also consider signing the early day motion EDM 737 (though I know you don't tend to sign them). |
| Date Issue Raised: |
02 Mar 2007 |
| My response: |
Thank you for the message on my website, and a number of constituents have contacted me about this. One had a letter published in today's Guardian; others - anxious young doctors - are understandably upset by the mess that the government has created.
30,000 junior doctors are chasing 22,000 specialist training posts this week, using the government’s ‘Modernising Medical Careers’ (MMC) scheme and an untried electronically based short listing tool called the Medical Training Application System (MTAS).
MMC is designed to reform the process of career progression for doctors. The need for reform was broadly supported by the profession but implementation has been hopeless.
Under MMC the old hierarchy of house officers, senior house officers and specialist registrars has been replaced with a two year foundation programme leading to specialist training posts progressing to consultant or general practitioner level within an abbreviated minimum of five years.
The BMA has rightly attacked as ‘shambolic’ the current chaos that revolves around MTAS, a system that was meant to make applications ‘fairer’ and to circumvent the “old boys’ network” that the government had identified.
MTAS is set to become the latest in a string of government computer disasters. It has been associated with repeated delays giving young doctors very little time to prepare for the interviews that are meant to commence this week, it has generated invitations for interview in the wrong specialities, at the wrong level and which clash. Unhelpfully for patient care it has generated capacity issues for hard-pressed consultants who have been forced to interview within a very tight window.
MTAS is not secure. My party has been contacted by doctors that have been alarmed to find that confidential information can be accessed and even changed by third parties.
My colleague Dr Andrew Murrison MP has written to Patricia Hewitt to ask her to review MMC and MTAS and to report on the remedial action that she intends to take.
As you say, I do not sign EDM's which have become like parliamentary graffiti. I believe there are better ways of chasing Ministers.
Best wishes, George Young
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Sir George Young Bt MP: Constituency and Parliamentary Website