Junior doctors lose High Court case on MTAS

Tags: A BMA DH Government iS UK US

23 May 2007

Remedy UK has lost its plea to the High Court for the online Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) to be completely scrapped.

The pressure group, created by disgruntled junior doctors, had wanted the new-web based application system to be abandoned with the recruitment process beginning again.

Last week, the Department of Health (DH), however, agreed to discontinue the web system , but carry on the recruitment process through interviews with successful candidates.

A Remedy UK spokesperson said before today’s ruling: “Junior doctors are very anxious about this. It has been one mistake after another and morale has been harmed.”

However, the judge, Mr Justice Goldring, ruled against the group and said that it would be unnecessary to invalidate the interviews already done but added that the junior doctors were justified to feel angry.

“The premature introduction of the new system has had disastrous consequences - and although the legal challenge has failed, many junior doctors have an entirely justifiable sense of grievance”, he said.

He added that individual junior doctors might still have good grounds for appeal under employment law, but Remedy UK said it was a “sad day” and they would not be appealing themselves.

Health minister responsible for the NHS workforce, Lord Hunt, commented: “We welcome this finding. In consultation with representatives of the medical community, including junior doctors, we will continue to work to establish the best possible way forward in order to match trainee doctors to posts.

“We feel strongly that the process of making job offers should go ahead in the interests of both doctors and patients. We understand the uncertainty the problems with the Medical Training and Application System have caused junior doctors and their families, and acknowledge the criticisms that the judgement contains.”

The British Medical Association, whose chairman James Johnson, resigned http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/item.cfm?ID=2704 over the MTAS affair on Monday, re-iterated that there are not enough jobs available as things currently stand and this needs to be addressed.

Dr Jo Hilborne, BMA Junior Doctors Committee chair, said: “We hope the Department of Health will not claim this as a victory when the careers of thousands of doctors remain in doubt because of government failures. The High Court is absolutely right to criticise their handling of this mess, and to point out that our concerns about it were ignored. The harsh fact facing us now is that there are not enough jobs. There are 12,000 doctors who will not get training posts through this system, and they must be our priority.

“We have demanded that the government guarantee that no doctor will be unemployed as a result of this process and called for funding for extra training posts. We now hope that doctors will unite to fight for these aims. The past week has been incredibly painful for the medical profession. It’s time for us to start healing the wounds and move on.”

Health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, faces a vote of no-confidence in the Commons later this afternoon, over the MTAS controversy, which has been ongoing since the March closing date.

However, Lord Hunt says that it is important now to learn lessons from the problems the DH has experienced.

“We need to ensure that lessons from what has happened are learned and learned thoroughly. That is why the secretary of state has asked Sir John Tooke to establish an independent review of the process so that the best possible mechanisms are in place for the training of our junior doctors.”

Over 30,000 applicants are chasing around 20,000 specialist training posts and there are fears that junior doctors will go abroad if they fail to get a position here.

Readers Comments

"guarantee that no doctor will be unemployed"

29 May 07 10:44

I'm trying to think of any other walk of life where those completing training expect to be guaranteed a job. Does it say something about the training doctors receive that they believe that a well paid job-for-life is reserved for them? Wobbly on-line jobs sites, irritating application forms, disappointments - welcome to the real world.

Dawning reality

29 May 07 11:38

I agree with the previous comment. The assumption that completion of a medical degree still guarantees a job for life is rather naive. Like other paper qualifications, it allows entry to professional training programmes in which - as with most other professions - the career structure is a broad-based hierarchical pyramid in which inputs at the bottom exceed output opportunities at the top.

There's a argument that people clever enough to get into medical school were surely smart enoughto research the supply and demand equation before they enrolled on the course. And if they couldn't do that for themselves, the BMA could perhaps have done more to highlight the over-production of doctors that has been looming for many years.

What these individuals may now be surprised to discover is that the NHS is by-and-large the monopoly employer of UK doctors; that a medical degree really only qualifies you to begin to practise medicine within that monopoly; and that non-medical fallback options that were previously available to surplus or disenchanted medics can now be readily filled with people with more relevant qualifications.

So let's stop the special pleading and get real. C'est la vie!

dawning reality

peterrowlands@btopenworld.com

29 May 07 15:54

The issue here is that doctors are used to competing for scarce training jobs. Twas always so. However they are applying without a CV or previous experience, or publications or prizes or whatever being taken into account. They are applying using a few mickey mouse questions which have probably no relevance to their suitability for the job. The quality of the website application form has been poor beyonf belief, to add insult to injury...

Re: Dawning realisation

29 May 07 17:30

I sense that Peter Rowlands has fallen into the same trap as the junior doctors in conflating two separate issues:

(1) The application process was highly unsatisfactory - a point that most people outside the DH would have no problem accepting. But this is a short-term issue and remediable.

(2) Labour supply outstrips demand by a factor of 150% - a fact of modern day working life for many (if not most) of the workforce. So what's their complaint and why do they believe they are a special case? I accept that point that competition for good medical training jobs has always been fierce, but expansion in medical schools (as well as other factors) has altered the configuration of the career pyramid in a way that I believe is now far more unfavourable for those experieicning difficulties in progressing upwards. This is nothing to do with the flawed application process and I stand by my previous posting in saying that there is a cohort of doctors who perhaps need to accept the fact and develop alternative career plans, rather than pleading a tenuous special case.

find the facts first

ciaradennigan@hotmail.com

04 Jun 07 18:49

I agree with the first two comments in that no job guarentees a training post or job. But you are obviously ignorant of the facts. What job gives you one opportunity (ie one interview) to decide your entire career! That is the reality of this system. If you are unsuccessful you are pushed out of the system. Forcing you abroad, never to be able to fit back into this countries system. So before you start talking about the real world, get your facts straight! And by the way, im not a doctor.