Health secretary Patricia Hewitt and the health minister in the Lords, Philip Hunt, should resign over the MTAS scandal, delegates at today’s BMA junior doctors conference agreed. They also voted unanimously that the National Audit Office should investigate the waste of public money which the whole system has caused. […]
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MTAS site temporarily suspended pending security checks
As angry junior doctors meet tomorrow for their annual BMA conference, the government has issued a formal statement in the Commons saying it has temporarily suspended the MTAS site following the security breach earlier this week. “This breach had no impact on the current recruitment of junior doctors into specialty training,” health secretary Patricia Hewitt told […]
Candidates’ details were freely available in MTAS security breach
Personal details of applicants involved in the already discredited MTAS system were available for all to see yesterday — until the Department of Health stepped in and closed the loophole which had allowed anyone to view the page without the need for a password. […]
Protestors lobby Westminster
Some 400 junior doctors joined the rally outside parliament today and many of them went on to lobby their individual MPs in the Commons. The action, organised by Remedy UK, coincided with an opposition debate on the MTAS debacle. […]
Unemployed doctors could opt for VSO, review group told
There has been an outcry at the news that one briefing paper to the MTAS review group suggests doctors who can’t find a job in the UK should consider working for Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) instead. The BMA says the government’s failures in workforce planning have created this mess. […]
Hewitt apologises – and announces review of MMC
Health secretary Patricia Hewitt has today issued an apology to those caught up in the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) crisis, acknowledging that it had been a time of ‘great distress’ to them. And she announced another review, this time of the whole of the Modernising Medical Careers policy, rather than just of MTAS. It […]
Remedy UK to pursue legal action
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. […]
Surgery to be a special case
The MTAS review group has agreed to recommend a special case should be made for junior doctors wishing to pursue a career in surgery. There will be special transitional arrangements to cope with the large number of Senior House Officers and others in non-training grades wanting to enter year 3 specialist training posts, said Bernard Ribeiro, President of […]
Review group sets out compromise deal
The Department of Health has set out a compromise deal to try to end the confusion and anger over interviews for junior doctor posts in England. It announced late this afternoon that candidates for posts in England who have already been interviewed would not have to opt ‘blind’ for one post, without knowing the outcome […]
BMA warns that thousands will be jobless
32000 junior doctors are chasing the 18500 jobs which are going to available from 1 August, says the BMA in a statement issued this morning. And some are inevitably going to be disappointed, it says. The BMA says an analysis of the figures on the MTAS website shows that the actual number of UK specialist […]