Junior doctors quit recruitment talks

The British Medical Association's (BMA's) junior doctors committee (JDC) has withdrawn from the review group looking at ways to resolve failures of the medical training application service (MTAS), following proposals which the committee view to be unacceptable.

The JDC believes that the entire recruitment system should be replaced unless doctors are allowed to be interviewed for all posts that they apply for.

However, the review group has proposed that doctors should be restricted to just one interview.

BMA evidence has shown that this could leave over 11,000 doctors who have been offered more than one interview at a disadvantage, as they would now see those opportunities taken away.

JDC chairman Dr Jo Hilborne said that the committee had worked hard with the review group but could not sign up to the proposal.

"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 jeopardised by this shambles of a system," Dr Hilborne added.

Dr Rajesh Rajendran, chairman of the JDC in Northern Ireland, described it as "a sad day for the medical profession".

"Junior doctors are the senior doctors of the future; if patients are to have an NHS staffed by the best doctors, then the current system of recruitment, which denies highly qualified medics access to their specialised training, must be changed or halted," he remarked.

Source material: A BMA press release

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