Login

MTAS and the GMC

Read about our campaign to bring the Architects of MTAS before the GMC Fitness to Practice committee.
 
Petition for signatures
Our letter of referral
The legal background
 
We need to raise funds to support this case. We welcome donations by Paypal, bank transfer or credit/debit cards.

Campaigns

Have you got gaps in your rota? Then tell your MP PDF Print E-mail
Saturday, 14 March 2009
Image
We are hearing more and more stories about shortages of doctors and gaps in rotas. Unfilled posts mean that individual doctors are working overtime (sometimes unpaid), teaching and delivery of the curriculum is struggling and patient care may be getting compromised. There seem to be no central figures on the problem, and those figures that do exist seem out-of-date and inaccurate. Our feedback from the DoH is that although they are aware that problem exists they are ‘not hearing any noise’ from the shop floor. And the Secretary of State seems unaware of the scale of the problem.

It is time to make some noise.

Remedy is urging individual doctors to write to their MPs and tell them what is going on, and to invite their senior and junior colleagues to do the same. We believe that there will be no action on this until the politicians become aware of the situation as it affects their own constituency members. They need to be informed if their local doctors are overstretched and fatigued and the care of their constituents potentially compromised - and of the various fudges and short-term fixes that are being used to plug the gaps. They also need to know if the problem is getting worse, and whether or not it will be affected by the Working Time Directive.

They probably won't hear this from Alan Johnson who told Parliament that:-

Incidentally, there is no vacancy problem, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) suggested. On the last set of figures, we had a 95 per cent. fill rate; there is absolutely no vacancy problem anywhere in the country that I know of.
You can find the details of your local MP at http://www.writetothem.com/ or at http:/findyourmp.parliament.uk/commons/l/ - both these websites will let you send emails to them. You can also contact your MP through their local constituency.

We suggest that you title your email “Shortage of doctors in [name of hospital]” and that you include the following details:-

  • The department or rota within the hospital
  • The shortages that you are experiencing, how long you have been short and any anticipated changes over the next few months.
  • Whether your Trust has made a reasonable effort to fill the gaps and whether unavailability of locums has been a significant factor
  • How this shortage is affecting doctors – are you overstretched, and is training being affected?
  • How this shortage is affecting patients
  • Whether you frequently had shortages before the introduction of MMC

As well as drawing his or her attention to the local problem, you should also ask your MP to exert pressure on the Health Secretary to look at the national picture. Please ask her/him to write to him (or do this yourself via This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) asking for:-

  • An independent national audit to establish the scale of the problem, and
  • An independent inquiry into the reasons for the problem

We would appreciate it if you could also mention the work being done by Remedy on this issue and if you could send us a copy of any correspondence you have with your MP (send it to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

Why is this happening? The Remedy analysis

Rigid rotas and the reduction in timetabled hours make it harder to cope with shortages than it did in the past. An absence of even one doctor on a rota makes a big difference to the others. Remedy warned the Health Select Committee about this problem back in December 2007. We anticipated then that the shortages in July would be around 20%, and that the rigid structure of MMC was responsible.

Creating a lack of available locums was a deliberate policy - it was sold to us as 'getting rid of the lost tribe'. This 'lost tribe' was the free labour market. The loss to this country of many International Medical Graduates is also a major factor.

These problems could have been predicted years ago. The fact that they were been allowed to happen tells us a lot about the planning behind MMC.

Earlier this year a survey of over a thousand surgeons by the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) showed significant underreporting of hours worked by trainees as NHS Trusts struggled to meet the new restrictions. Their study confirmed that 90% of trainee surgeons exceeded their rostered hours on a weekly basis, 85% did operations on their days off, and 55% reported being pressured to falsely declare their actual hours worked.

Most Trusts are making a genuine effort to find locums to fill the gaps, but those that are available are in short supply. We have heard that International Medical Graduates may be recruited to plug the gaps, but many of the vacant posts will be filled in August when the next medical school cohort qualifies and the training conveyor belt moves up. Few doctors from abroad would be interested in working for such short periods in a foreign country.

A small number of Trusts might be looking at their financial bottom line and might see some benefit in saving a few salaries.