Winter pressure is putting junior doctors’ training at risk, leaders warn

Junior doctors are being forced to miss opportunities for training because of winter pressure on the NHS, doctors’ leaders have warned.

On 2 January NHS England advised hospitals to postpone elective procedures until the end of January and to defer outpatient appointments and day case surgery in a bid to ease mounting pressure on services.1

Sarah Hallett, deputy chair of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, said that the deferrals in elective surgery and clinics were having a detrimental effect on trainees in surgery in particular, though all trainees were being affected. She …