Expanding consultant numbers is not enough

BMJ 1995;310:1673-1674 (24 June)

Letters

Expanding consultant numbers is not enough

EDITOR,--Trevor J Bayley suggests that the unified traininggrade willimprove the lot of senior house officers and registrars.¹What matters is not what they are called but whether they holdrecognised posts in organised training schemes and can findjobs on accreditation.

I disagree with his statement that a simple, sudden expansionof the number of consultants can be the key to successful implementationof the system. In some specialties this may be feasible, butin surgery, at least, we face considerable problems. We couldachieve a small expansion by promoting senior registrars andsome highly experienced registrars, but what of the traineesof the future? Our latest trainees are expected to acquire theexperience necessary to become consultants in roughly half thenumber of years that their predecessors served, while workingfewer hours each week. The aim is laudable, but how is thisto be achieved, especially with increasing . . . [Full text of this article]