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Hospital crippled by red tape
CONSULTANTS in Westminster’s busiest hospital have spent as much time interviewing junior doctors as giving potentially life-saving advice.
A botched system for selecting junior doctors has led to hundreds of unread applications burdening consultants in St Mary’s Hospital.
The interviews have been known to take up as much as half the working week, according to a paediatric consultant at the Paddington hospital.
Jane Deel, consultant in the paediatrics department, said: “We are trying to make the best of what has been a very bad situation.”
The British Medical Association called it a “dreadful mess”.
Gremlins in the system – known as Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) – has left St Mary’s Hospital without any junior doctors booked for the summer.
There are 32,000 junior doctor vacancies across the country that has led to 15,000 extra interviews for positions that must be filled by the first of August 1.
From the outset, junior doctors claimed the MTAS system was unfair and after a Channel 4 investigation revealed security breaches consultants began boycotting the interview process.
St Mary’s has continued to use the time-consuming system.
Ms Peel said: “It was an unfair system and just a flawed short-listing process.”
A spokesman for the hospital said: “We made a pessimistic assessment of MTAS and created a contingency plan for other interviewing processes. We will continue with the system until August 1.”
The Department of Health on Tuesday announced it had scrapped the system after more than ten thousand doctors marched from Regent’s Park to Lincoln’s Inn Fields last month.
They said the system had led to consultants cancelling operations and surgeries to cope with the controversial system.
MTAS will from August 1 be used only for monitoring and local deaneries will be able to offer additional posts. |
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