07.11.13
Planning needed to avoid over-supply of consultants – RCP
The number of doctors in training continues to increase, but just 56% of newly-qualified physicians are securing long-term consultant posts, new figures indicate.
Data from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board (JRCPTB) highlights a 7% fall from the 2012 survey. Since 2004, the number of trainee doctors has been increasing, but the number of available consultant posts has slowed in its expansion.
This could be due to an unwillingness to financially commit to long-term posts, the RCP and JRCPTB suggest, and the availability of posts varies across specialties, in part reflecting the popularity of different types of medicine. Only 24% of applications to a genitor-urinary post resulted in a substantive role, while 81% of geriatric applications did.
The number of qualified physicians taking up locum posts also increased from 19% last year to 22% in 2013.
Dr Andrew Goddard, director of the RCP’s Medical Workforce Unit, said: “The drop in the number of newly qualified physicians securing substantive consultant posts, combined with an increase in the number of newly qualified physicians taking locum posts points to financially restricted trusts unwilling to commit to long-term contracts.
“Hospitals are facing an increasing number of emergency admissions, we know that a consultant-delivered service is best for patients and we know that the service must be delivered across seven days a week. The need for consultants is clearly there, yet more than four in ten newly qualified physicians are not securing a consultant post.
“This survey provides yet more evidence that we need national workforce planning to use all available data to prevent over supply of trained doctors in some medical specialties and under-supply in others.”
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