Remedy UK, the organisation behind the protest marches against MTAS, has decided it will continue its legal action — despite the latest compromise proposals aimed at ensuring appointments can be made in time for August, when posts become vacant.
Matt Jameson Evans, speaking for the organisation, said they had yet to receive a response from the lawyers at either the MTAS review team or the deaneries to their proposed legal challenge.
He argues the system being proposed is unfair because different candidates are being treated differently.
“That’s no way to launch people’s future career,” he said. “You’ve got people interviewed for the same job months apart. They will have different sorts of interviews, and different interview panels. There is no equity there.”
He said they would not be challenging the plans to go ahead with appointments to jobs starting in August. But they will suggest that these appointments should merely be temporary ones. “They should be accredited towards training, but be renegotiated for February,” he suggested. Jobs starting in February could be made on the basis of a fairer appointments system, he said.
The firm of lawyers dealing with their case, Leigh Day and Co, are well known for their clinical negligence and human rights work.
Mr Jameson Evans said they would be putting the Remedy UK case forward as an employment issue rather than a human rights one.
He was not prepared to comment on how the legal action was being funded.