Countering poor training within the NHS

The BMJ tries to help

Training staff is vitally important in successful organisations. The British government recently identified poor training and staff development as one of the main reasons why British companies suffer from chronic low productivity compared with many foreign companies. As a result it introduced a scheme—“investors in people”—that allows organisations to be kitemarked if they achieve high performance in training and developing staff. Ironically, within the NHS—an organisation that is the responsibility of the government—there are glaring deficiencies with training, and the BMJ this week begins an attempt to address some of them.

The worst deficiency is that many posts for junior doctors are not approved for training. This …