Chaos fears dismissed as 500 junior doctors start at Mersey hospitals

Aug 2 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

Royal Liverpool Hospital

MERSEYSIDE’S health managers said fears hospitals would be thrown into chaos as 30,000 junior doctors started new jobs across the country yesterday were unfounded.

Last night, Merseyside’s NHS Trust executives said it was “business as usual” even though recent changes in the way junior doctors are appointed meant around 30,000 medics took up new jobs on the same day.

They said careful planning for the introduction of the huge intake of almost 500 junior doctors in Merseyside was responsible for the smooth transition and refuted claims that standards of patient care had been affected.

But a spokesman for the Mersey Deanery, covering all hospitals in the Merseyside and Cheshire area, said it would be some days before the full picture was known in terms of whether operations had had to be cancelled or postponed as experienced doctors took time to help new staff. He added that “no major problems had yet been reported as a result of the changes introduced”.

The British Medical Association predicted that a last-minute rush to fill posts could have lead to operations being postponed and cancelled clinics.

But a spokesperson for Aintree University Hospitals NHS Trust said they have been planning for the introduction of the new junior doctor intake for a number of months, including appropriate annual leave arrangements and some reduction in operating activity to accommodate the induction of the new intake over three days.

They said they are running normal clinics for this time of year and added: “All the new doctors who are starting with the Trust have had formal induction sessions and the newly qualified doctors have just completed a three-day induction covering all the Heath and Safety issues, their roles and responsibilities and the working practices at University Hospital Aintree.

“In addition, before starting their new jobs they have all spent some time shadowing ward doctors.

“Due to the tremendous efforts of the Post Graduate Dean and his team and local consultants we don’t anticipate any problems

“A total of 179 junior doctors started today which is broadly the same number as last year.”

Eight new medical students and 200 other grades of junior doctor also started work at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospital yesterday. The changes to start days, under the Modernising Medical Careers programme, were designed to speed up the time it takes to become a consultant.

It follows reforms in junior doctor training and the introdu-ction of the controversial online Medical Training Application Service (MTAS), which has proved unpopular with junior doctors.

A group of doctors, Remedy UK, even took legal action seeking to overturn the whole process and a judge ruled the interviews which had taken place should stand, but the Government did not use MTAS in the second recruitment round which is running until the end of October.

Now record numbers of the regions’ junior doctors have had to seek work abroad after the flawed system left 16,000 trainees chasing 2,000 jobs.

A BMA survey of 2,000 doctors showed almost half have considered leaving the country if they do not get jobs.

carolineinnes