Covid-19: Private hospitals commit to training juniors who help to tackle backlog

Private healthcare providers have committed to training junior doctors while they are working at their hospitals to help tackle the NHS backlog caused by the covid-19 pandemic.

A letter from NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England said that independent sector providers had agreed to cooperate with the NHS and the relevant regulators to provide training.1

“Health Education England postgraduate deans are registering all participating providers with the GMC [General Medical Council] as recognised training sites providing that the environments comply with their regulatory standards for education and training,” the letter said.

Cliff Shearman, vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said that the NHS needed to make use of operating theatres and clinical facilities in the independent sector to get through the “mammoth backlog” caused by covid-19. In June the BMA called on the government to set out a plan to reduce the huge backlog of patients waiting for NHS treatments unrelated to covid-19.2

Shearman said that his college was delighted that independent sector providers who treated NHS patients under the NHS England national contract had agreed to provide training. “It’s only right that NHS funded treatment should help train the NHS workforce of the future,” he said.