The incoming government has to prioritise medical training and safeguard the quality of the NHS medical workforce, delegates heard at the BMA’s annual junior doctors conference.
Dr Shree Datta, chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said research shows that four in 10 juniors are working on understaffed rotas, and that they are increasingly working more anti-social hours in which training opportunities are scarce.
She said: “The NHS prides itself, quite rightly, on its highly trained staff, but the quality of doctors it produces depends on the quality of training provided. Alarmingly, our training is now under threat on many fronts. By the £20bn worth of efficiency savings; by the understaffed rotas one in four of us now have to work on; by a haphazard review of training funding and by the fractured implementation of the 48 hour week.”
Datta added that BMA research revealed that nearly half of doctors are also missing out on essential training.
She said: “Working extra shifts to prop up understaffed rotas means less time to learn new procedures, less time to practice our skills, less time to learn and less time to become better doctors. Without proper training junior doctors will not be able to gather the skills, experience and knowledge needed to be the GPs and consultants of tomorrow.”
She also warned that the next government needs to improve workforce planning to ensure doctors are properly equipped to meet future demands.
“There is a clear and urgent need to review the medical workforce so that the number of medical graduates closely matches the number of specialty training places and the need for consultant and GP posts.
“If junior doctors do not have a realistic chance of becoming a consultant or GP - we risk wasting precious NHS funding and creating a generation of frustrated underemployed doctors.”
Read her full speech.
