Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): This recent debacle will have even more serious effects on family members and loved ones who are trying to get training posts. The BMA said this morning that 34,250 doctors were trying to find posts, but that only 18,500 posts were available. The BMA also said that the vast majority—two thirds—of those doctors will not stay in the NHS. This is a crazy situation. We need those doctors to stay in the NHS—they have been paid for by taxpayers’ money—but under this Secretary of State’s leadership, if we can call it that, there is massive distrust in the system. Ms Hewitt: I have already said that there is a real, and unsurprising, failure of confidence in the MTAS system, the computerised application system for recruitment. I am afraid, however, that once again Conservative Members are, deliberately or inadvertently, muddling up the numbers. There are 32,000 eligible candidates for training posts. There are 23,000 training posts—more than ever before. Of the applicants, about 30,000 are already working in the NHS. Some are in training posts, but thousands are in non-training junior doctor posts—staff posts, non-career consultant grade posts, and so on. All those jobs will continue to be needed in the NHS. It is therefore simply wrong to say that an applicant who does not get a training post, or does not get the training post that he or she wanted, will inevitably be unemployed. |
