One in 30 foundation posts were unfilled in 2012-13

About one in 30 places in the first year of foundation training in 2012-13 were not filled, figures from the UK Foundation Programme Office show.

In August last year 238 (3.1%) of the 7627 posts in foundation year 1 (F1) were not filled, along with 1.7% of F2 posts, says the Foundation Programme Office’s annual report.1

Around half (110) of the unfilled F1 posts resulted from failure to find a replacement after appointees failed examinations. In a further 25% of cases appointees resigned too late for a replacement to be found, and in 23% of cases an appointee had not been identified by August 2012.

The report also shows that women made up the majority of doctors taking on F1 and F2 roles in 2013, with 58.1% of F1 doctors and 59.7% of F2 doctors being women. In 2010 61.3% of F1 and 59.7% of F2 doctors were women.

The proportion of doctors who successfully completed their foundation years in August 2013 and were signed off as having attained the appropriate level of competence was slightly lower than in the previous year. In 2013 96.8% of F1 doctors and 96.1% of F2 doctors were signed off, compared with 97% of both year groups in 2012.

The report said that the commonest reasons for foundation doctors not being signed off were “exceeding more than four weeks absence from training and requiring additional or remedial training to meet the standards for satisfactory completion of the foundation year.”

Slightly fewer foundation doctors were referred to the General Medical Council because of concerns over their fitness to practise in 2013 than in 2012, the report shows. In 2013, 18 F1 doctors (0.3%) and 13 F2 doctors (0.2%) were referred to the regulator, down from 25 (0.3%) F1 and 30 (0.4%) F2 doctors in 2012.

Of the 2013/14 F1 doctors, 6945 (97.2%) graduated from UK medical schools and 203 (2.8%) from outside the UK, the report said.