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Modernising Medical Careers

I strongly support the hon. Gentleman’s motion. Does he agree that the key point about MMC is that the number of training posts will not meet the need of the people who want to apply? The principle should be that all those who are qualified for a training post, and who are capable of being trained to consultant level and wish to be trained to that level, should have a training post; otherwise, we are wasting money by putting them through medical school and house jobs. A solution in which those people are parked in career-grade posts, so that they become fellows or hold staff grades or trust grades, is not acceptable, because then the service will be delivered not by consultants, but by a demoralised and often racially segregated group of doctors who are not fully trained and who are not specialists—and that is not the way we want our health service to go.