MTAS again
The Guardian picks up again on the ongoing MTAS joke of a recruitment process with a call for the government to abandon it.
A poll of more than 1,700 people, including more than 400 consultants, found that most want the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) application process dropped.
The results of today’s poll showed junior doctors that they were not alone, said its organiser, Cambridge University professor Morris Brown.
But Prof Brown, clinical supervisor and professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Cambridge, said the review “has done nothing to assuage the juniors”.
Promises that applicants could try in the second round were not good enough.
He said: “Many doctors preferring to be a physician (for instance) or psychiatrist, were allocated instead to interviews in surgery or general practice, and will not receive a second chance.
“Those rejected altogether may not find any of their preferred options available in the second round.
“I set up a website to sample medical opinion about Lord Hunt’s apparent climbdown.
“A large majority wish the process to be stopped altogether and those responsible not to climb down but to step down.
“In just three days, we have had 1,763 named respondents, including 401 consultants.”
Why have the statistics about the recruitment process not been released?
I would like to know the official count for the total numbers of posts available, the number of training posts, the number of applicants who did not get a single place on the shortlist, the numbers of those who got shortlisted in specialities they had no interest in, the number of couples split apart, the number of applicants being forced to relocate etc. You get my drift.
If this is truly being handled on a computerised system, it should be trivially easy to obtain this information.
Prof Brown said 85% to 90% want the first and second rounds of interviews aborted now.
“All but 119 (ie almost 95%) believe the architects of MMC should resign,” he added.
Only 207 respondents considered MMC to be an improvement upon the previous system, he said, adding “the results are still pouring in”.
This relates to the letter published in the Guardian yesterday & which I quoted here.
Professor John Bell, the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Professor Sir John Tooke, the chair of the Council of Heads of Medical Schools, said the government’s vision of the UK as a world-class centre for biomedical research and healthcare could “not be realised” without a research-oriented medical workforce.
Professor O’Rahilly, the chair of the Medical Research Society, also spoke out about threats to the future of medical research.
He said: “The dumbing down of the assessment and training of doctors amounts to one of the biggest threats to clinical research that we have seen for decades.
“We welcome the ministerial climbdown on the computerised application system, but it’s important that we make a broader point about the folly of ‘dumbing down’ the assessment of doctors at the very time that the Government is having a major push to make medical research a critical part of the ‘knowledge economy’ and create a National Institute for Health Research in the NHS.
“The pressures coming from the Department of Health to shorten postgraduate training, take it out of the hands of the expert doctors and discourage academic aspirations or achievement are in direct opposition to the wishes of the Department for Trade and Industry and the Treasury to make Britain a world leading centre in which to undertake translational clinical research.”
The Telegraph continues its campaign with a claim from
Prof Ian Gilmore, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, (who) added his voice to the criticism, saying the system was “at the point of breaking down”
The Lancet called for MTAS to be suspended and said the new system, combined with EU laws preventing junior doctors from working longer than 48 hours per week, would produce inexperienced consultants.
An editorial in the journal said: “Previously surgeons underwent approximately 30,000 training hours before becoming consultants - this will now decrease to 6,000.”
The chaos also receives coverage in the Times.
“Without a scientifically informed and research-orientated medical workforce throughout the country, the Government’s vision of the UK as a world-class centre for bio-medical research and health-care cannot be realised.â€
The DoH trotted out the same old argument that it would be unfair to stop the process now. That argument is so tired, it deserves a full burial with lying in state.
The Telegraph also picks up the Local Government Association release about the cuts in social services spending.