Doctors' fury at job chaos
WORKERS, APR 2007 ISSUE
Late last month junior doctor representatives and their consultant colleagues walked out of talks with the government about the disastrous online application system the government had imposed to supposedly make appointment to specialist posts "more equal".
The junior doctors and their senior colleagues described the system as "complete chaos" with thousands of expensively trained junior doctors unplaced and without even an opportunity to be interviewed. On Saturday 17 March 12,000 doctors and their families and supporters had marched from the Royal College of Physicians to the Royal College of Surgeons via central London. A similar march took place in Glasgow (see photo). No one could remember a time when the medical profession had united in quite this way to mark their collective disgust at a government initiative.
Doctors in Glasgow protest against the chaos of the new appointments system.
Photo: Workers
The chaos around medical staffing is mirrored in other areas with a whole range of therapists and nurses finding it impossible to gain employment at a time when services are struggling to treat patients. The Commons Health select committee has described the whole of NHS workforce planning a "disastrous failure" and criticised the government for its "boom and bust" approach, accusing ministers of trying to "micromanage" a process that it does not understand. Other health workers should take a lead from the doctors and act to regain control of employment practices in their own profession.