BMJ  2006;332:1471 (24 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7556.1471-c

News

BMA's claim of unemployment among junior doctors is rejected

London

A claim made last week by the BMA that a shortage of training posts will prompt a mass exodus of junior doctors from the NHS to avoid unemployment next year has been called into question by the NHS Confederation, the body that represents employers in the NHS.

Dr Jo Hilborne said the fact that 11 500 doctors could be unemployed was "outrageous"

 

The Department of Health has said that 9500 specialist training posts would become available in England next year when senior house officer posts are phased out under its modernising medical careers initiative, the new training and careers framework for medicine.

But the BMA calculates that 21 000 applicants—comprising senior house officers, new graduates from the two year postgraduate foundation course, and overseas applicants—will be competing for these posts, leaving a surplus of 11 500.

"The fact that [these doctors] could be unemployed is outrageous. The alternative—which is pushing doctors into dead end jobs, so they never get essential skills that benefit their patients—is unacceptable and won't work," said Jo Hilborne, who chairs the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee. "Doctors are simply going to leave the NHS instead."

But speaking at the NHS Confederation's annual conference in Birmingham last week, Steve Barnett, director of NHS Employers, which negotiates national contracts for NHS staff on behalf of the government, rejected the claims.

"We would dispute these figures. It is far too early to make assumptions around numbers, because the information simply isn't available," he said. "The job opportunities are being talked about as the minimum," he continued, adding that trusts had yet to start redesigning their posts.

"We don't envisage the kinds of problems the BMA is talking about," said Mr Barnett. But he indicated that applicants might need to take a more flexible approach to where they were prepared to work and the specialties they wished to train in.

"We need to encourage mobility," he said.

Graham Saunders, medical workforce policy adviser at NHS Employers, said that all medical graduates in July this year would get postgraduate foundation posts but that the situation in 2007 depended on discussions with postgraduate deans.

"Most will end up in fixed term appointments for modernising medical careers," he said, but they may have to be prepared to move.

"We train far more doctors in London and the South East than are required, so if they want to work there there won't be jobs for all of them," he pointed out.

(See "Lean thinking will cut NHS inefficiencies" in News Extra, 24 June, at bmj.com.)

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