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WAITING: Ivo Dukic
WAITING: Ivo Dukic
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Scandal of the jobless doctors

Clarissa Satchell and Yakub Qureshi
28/ 7/2005

DOCTORS across the north west who are trained at a cost of millions of pounds can't find jobs.

In one shocking case, Manchester medic Ivo Dukic, 25, has been rejected from nearly 80 posts and is now looking abroad for work. He is even considering giving up medicine altogether despite seven years' study.

The crisis is hitting recent medical graduates who have completed the first part of their training as a house officer. They need to get a senior house officer (SHO) post to become fully qualified.

This two-stage training process is designed to give young doctors experience of treating a variety of illnesses.

But, despite shortages of doctors throughout the NHS, there is an increasingly limited number of SHO jobs.

The British Medical Association said many junior medics will be left without a job when their contracts expire next Tuesday.

A survey of recent graduates - who each received around £250,000-worth of training - found many without work were now considering leaving the country, switching career, or even claiming unemployment.

More than a third of doctors who completed the first stage of their training said they had not been able to get the advanced training job they needed. Nearly 58 per cent of the 276 surveyed said they would consider going overseas to train.

Planning

The BMA has written to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, pointing out the problem is partly the result of increasing demand for posts and partly due to poor planning.

It says the number of places at medical schools has increased and applications from overseas medics are rising.

But at the same time the number of postgraduate training posts has not been growing at the same rate. It adds that part of the problem is down to the new training structure for young doctors.

The BMA said the government had claimed there was no reduction in the number of SHO posts. But their own research of SHO jobs advertised in BMJ Careers showed such posts halved between May 2002 and May 2005.

Simon Eccles, chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said:“We keep hearing from doctors who’ve been turned down for hundreds of jobs.

It makes no sense at a time when the country is short of fully trained medical staff, we’re pushing doctors into unemployment.”

The exact number of Greater Manchester’s 2,000 medics affected is unclear, but Dr Kailash Chand, who represents the BMA in the north west, said: “There are doctors who aren’t able to finish their training. The system is fundamentally flawed.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "There has always been healthy competition for SHO posts, particularly in popular areas and specialities.

“No jobs have been phased out as a result of the new structure. There have been a small number of SHO posts and ‘Trust grade’ posts used to pilot the new training programmes.

“There will be further changes in August 2006 with the national roll-out of the second year of the Foundation Programme, but these changes do not impact on the overall number of training posts.”


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Most recent 2 of 4 user comments

   This is a truly disgraceful situation. Why is it that those in charge of workforce planning just can't seem to get it right? I am a trained hospital conulstant. In my speciality, there is currently a lot of unfilled consultant posts around the North West. This is all because of a cut in training posts a decade ago, with the subsequent effect felt some five years later and still continuing. We have really suffered, with many departments understaffed and overworked because of a shortage of trained conultants. I shudder to think that the situation is repeating itself again. It seems that the government has not learn the lesson of the past. More than anything, this ultimate leads to a poor service and it is the public who will really suffer in the end.
SY, Manchester
29/07/2005 at 15:24

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   "Well, we are short of doctors so let's bring them in from abroad. I know it will hit the third world country by leaving them short of vital medical staff but what the hell. Better still, the one's we train at taxpayer's expense here could go and work over there - that will balance it all out" Mmmm! You go off on holiday Tony, you deserve it. The problem will still be here when you get back.
Steve, Bolton
28/07/2005 at 11:07

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