Junior Doctors of UK Stage Walkout

Britain’s junior doctors have walked out of a review body set up to solve protests over the government designed recruitment system.

Britain’s junior doctors have walked out of the review body described as the ‘ the most equitable and practical solution available’ by its mentors, to deal with their protests against the Medical Training Application Service.

The government review group was established to look at failures in the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS), which is part of the Modernizing Medical Careers (MMC) project. It has come under fierce criticism, with claims that under the system talented candidates can be overlooked for training places.

The junior doctors who are now ‘ an increasingly angry ’ lot have boycotted the review meet mainly because there are suggestions of restricting the doctors to one interview each, in spite of many of them being offered more than even two.

Complaints against the online questionnaire are that the forms are badly worded, do not ask pertinent questions, do not allow them to set out relevant qualifications and experience, and have no facility for attaching a CV.

The result, they say, is that the best candidates are not being selected for the right jobs and has left thousands without any interview at all.

Says Jo Hilborne, chairman of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee : “Anything that is not fair on junior doctors will crush morale and drive many away from the NHS.

"We will continue to express to the government the urgency of a solution that is acceptable to 33,000 increasingly angry doctors whose careers have been jeopardized by this shambles of a system," she added.

The Department of Health said it was disappointed at the BMA withdrawal.

"Now that we are implementing the review group's recommendations we would like the BMA to work with us," a health department spokeswoman was quoted.

"The review group has already looked at a wide range of options and its recommendations will mean that almost every junior doctor who has applied will have the opportunity to attend their first choice interview, rather than a few being offered several choices", she added.

Source-Medindia
ANN