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Modernising Medical Careers

I beg to move,"That this House acknowledges the UK’s exceptional history of medical training which has produced some of the best medical professionals in the world; supports medical training designed to improve patient care which is well implemented, flexible and applied in a way which ensures the necessary level of clinical experience; believes that these objectives have been undermined by poor planning, inadequate consultation and lamentable implementation; notes with particular concern the flawed electronic application process (MTAS) which has breached legitimate expectations that selection for entry to programmes must be open, fair and effective; regrets the lack of ministerial leadership for MTAS and the failure of the Government’s review to deliver strategic solutions; accepts that training posts are competitive but believes that insufficient allowance has been made for the number of trainees coming through the Foundation years in addition to the Senior House Officer (SHO) route; calls on the Government to create additional training posts to allow transition for SHOs into specialty training in 2007, 2008 and 2009; deeply regrets the distress and loss of goodwill among junior doctors in training; and further calls on the Review Group led by Sir John Tooke to listen to the medical profession in reviewing the structure of Modernising Medical Careers to ensure that the original principles, including flexibility, are sustained and command the confidence of the medical profession." The reason why we have called this debate and given up Opposition time to such an important subject is that time and again we have sought answers from the Secretary of State for Health and Ministers about what has happened to the modernising medical careers programme, in particular the recruitment and selection process. With your consent, Mr. Speaker, we put an urgent question that the Secretary of State had to answer, because previously she had provided no good answers. Last Monday, she came to the House to apologise unreservedly—about time—but also to announce a further review and the conclusions of the first review group she had instituted. Serious questions and issues remain, however, and many junior doctors across the country and the consultants responsible for the interviewing process feel they have not been answered. Our purpose today is therefore threefold. First, we want to secure some answers; secondly, through our motion, we want to make clear the necessary steps that the Government should accept to regain the confidence and support of the medical profession; and thirdly and not least, we want to demonstrate to the many junior doctors who have come to Westminster today to tell their Members of Parliament of their personal experiences, their disillusionment and, in many cases, their anger at what has happened to them that Conservative Members at least understand and accept their views. I suspect that many Labour Members, on the Back Benches at least, understand the problem. We will see later whether they are willing to come to the House to express to Ministers the sentiments that they have no doubt expressed to their constituents in private.