Despite a meeting of the MTAS review group yesterday, there’s been a deathly silence from the Department of Health on its progress.
All that the BMA – one of the group’s members – will say is: “We are using all available avenues to apply pressure on the government to come up with an adequate solution to this mess, which has caused anxiety to thousands of young doctors and taken up much of consultants’ valuable time. This includes expressing the seriousness of the situation through the review group.”
Meanwhile the debate over MTAS continues on Remedy UK’s webite, with protestors turning their attention to what should happen next.
John Firth writes: “Assuming that immediate abandonment of MTAS/MMC is not proposed, Remedy UK now needs to develop a consensus about how to proceed. This will not be easy, but must be done, because fractured opposition will be relatively easy for the government to resist.
“Ranting and raving is right and proper when faced with absurd injustices, but Remedy UK must now be clear about what should be done immediately, what sort of medical training system we want to (re)establish, and what tactics to advocate to get there,” he says.
But others, including a member of the support group Mums4Medics, is calling for a day of strike action.
“Whoever is planning the next part of the strategy please urgently consider strike action. This is a serious step to take and you will face the cry of “disgraceful, putting patient’s lives at risk, call yourselves caring etc. etc …” but the fact is that, if no-one stops this NOW then future care in our hospitals will be substandard and lives will certainly be put at risk,” she says.
John Firth responds that any plans for strike action must be put through the BMA.