MORE than 100 junior and student doctors protested outside the Royal Liverpool Hospital yesterday over a plan which they claimed would cost them around £4,000 a year.
They wanted to put pressure on the Department of Health to change their policy of scrapping free accommodation for newly-qualified medics.
Junior doctors were contractually required to live on hospital grounds or very close to hospitals, and NHS Trusts provided first-year medics with free accommodation.
But last year the Medical Act changed and juniors can now choose where they live. By August, those working at the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospitals University Trust will have to pay for their own accommodation.
The Department of Health described the on-site residency requirement as “archaic and unnecessary”.
But Andrew Collier, the British Medical Associations student representative in Liverpool, said the demonstrators were well supported by the public, and by passing ambulances and fire crews who flashed their blue lights.
He told the Daily Post last night: “We don’t want junior doctors to be out of pocket come August. Free accommodation has been used as a reason to keep junior doctors’s pay at the current level.
“We’re going to enter negotiations with NHS employers to hopefully find a resolution, and we want to keep the pressure on MPs to represent us in Parliament.”
The BMA are planning further demonstrations over the summer.
A spokesperson for the Royal’s hospital trust said: “We provide accommodation to junior doctors in the same way as all teaching hospitals in the country. This is a national issue and not unique to Liverpool or the North West.
“All newly-graduated junior doctors know that they will have to pay for accommodation in the first year, whichever NHS Trust they work at.
“While the Trust understands that medical students incur debts while studying, other students, including students in other health professions such as nursing, are in very similar positions when it comes to accommodation costs during their first year of work after qualifying.”
The Royal’s hospital trust provides typical en-suite residences in the city for about £80 per week, which they say compares favourably with other accommodation prices nearby.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The requirement for all doctors in their first year of foundation training to be resident in the hospital where they work is archaic and unnecessary for their training and the care of patients. It is also inconsistent with the Working Time Directive and our commitment to reduce junior doctors’ hours.
“We consulted extensively on the changes and legislation went through Parliament in the summer of 2007. NHS Employers indicated in March, 2007, that it was likely that this change would come into force on August 1, 2007. However, we are advising Trusts to maintain existing accommodation arrangements for the next year until August 2008.”
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