03.04.17
GMC promises more flexible training for doctors in new strategy
The General Medical Council (GMC) has today unveiled a new plan that aims to improve education paths for doctors by moving away from rigid training and allowing trainees more flexibility while they learn.
Today’s news follows a review of training that health secretary Jeremy Hunt asked the GMC to carry out during the junior doctor’s dispute in 2016, which heard from a range of voices including trainees, trainers, patients and medical colleges and faculties.
The results of the review found that training was out of date and in desperate need of reform, something that the new plan will look to change.
There were five key barriers to improving training flexibility identified in the report, including doctors having to start training from scratch if they decided to transfer between specialties, whilst training in alternative ways such as overseas and through experience in non-training grade posts not being recognised.
It was also recommended that extra career support was put in place for juniors from square one. Postgraduate training was also found to be slow to adapt to patient need and demand and rigid training structures actually made already large rota gaps even worse.
Charlie Massey, chief executive of the GMC, said: “The way that medical training has developed in the last 30 years has contributed to the low morale that doctors in training continue to experience.
“The actions that we set out in our report can make a meaningful difference to the professional lives of doctors and the choices they make about their careers. But ultimately it is patients who will benefit the most from these changes.”
Massey added that the GMC was ideally placed to drive changes forward but that extra flexibility and choice for doctors was a change that could not be delivered alone.
“We need all bodies involved in the delivery of UK medical education to work with us and be as determined as we are to deliver this ambitious vision,” he argued.
“If postgraduate training in the UK looks the same in five years’ time, then we will have failed trainees and we will have failed patients.”
NHS Employers CEO Danny Mortimer commented: “Employers welcome this important work, commissioned by the secretary of state, which was a key outcome from the agreements reached with the British Medical Association’s (BMA’s) Junior Doctor Committee (JDC) in May.
“It offers a real opportunity to better support doctors as they develop their careers in the NHS. We look forward to working with Health Education England, the royal colleges, the GMC and junior doctor representatives to apply the much-needed changes recommended in this report.”
And the BMA’s JDC chair, Dr Jeeves Wijesuiriya, said that he was looking forward to working with the GMC in implementing the plans.
“The junior doctors’ dispute raised a number of issues outside of the contract that need to be urgently addressed,” he added. “We are encouraged that as a result of our contract talks, the GMC has committed to act on junior doctors’ concerns around the lack of flexibility within training.
“Enabling doctors’ skills to be recognised and valued when transferring from one specialty to another, and addressing the arrangements for how doctors train are central issues to the recruitment and retention of the medical workforce. Tackling them will help to improve the current staffing crisis and ensure that patient care is protected in the long-term.
“Flexibility must not mean flexibility for employers to use junior doctors to cover up more rota gaps at the expense of their training.”