The firm: does it hold the answers to teamworking and morale?

In the discontinued “firm” system—a model of medical apprenticeship—groups of doctors worked together to provide patient care.

Firms generally had at least one permanent member, a consultant, who led the firm and after whom it was named. Some four of five trainees of varying seniority weren’t permanent members of this firm, but they belonged to it, and for many it was a consistent source of professional and emotional support.1 The quality of education and training that trainees received, however, varied.2

The firm’s demise came after 2005 when trainees began rotating more frequently under the Modernising Medical Careers programme. From 2009 European working time regulations shortened doctors’ working hours. Junior doctors spent less time on the wards and their involvement in teams became far more transitory.

But many doctors would like to see the firm reinstated, seeing it as an answer to today’s problems of disenfranchisement and low morale among junior staff.