| RemedyUK News Report |
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| Tuesday, 08 January 2008 | |
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Prof Sir John Tooke, head of the independent inquiry into Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), has left the recommendations from his interim report largely unchanged after receiving overwhelming support from the medical profession.
According to the final report which was published today (8 January 2008), only 4% of respondents disagreed with Sir John’s 45 preliminary recommendations. A staggering 87% of the 1440 responses - which came from both individuals and organisations - lent the proposals their full support. To help doctors navigate the lengthy 76-page document, Remedy UK has prepared a quick guide to the key recommendations (see box below). Although many of the 45 final recommendations are carried over verbatim from Sir John’s September 2007 report, the inquiry team has added two new crucial recommendations - RECOMMENDATION 46: ‘Urgent attention’ should be given to embracing a more ‘flexible approach’ to the European Working Time Directive and RECOMMENDATION 47: A new body, NHS Medical Education England (NHS:MEE), should be established to oversee workforce planning, agree on future training numbers and - crucially - hold a ring-fenced budget for medical education and training. Sir John proposes that NHS:MEE should be guided by an Advisory Board, which would include representation from doctors’ representative bodies, junior doctors, and employers. Remedy UK, which has highlighted the Government’s repeated failures over MMC, was delighted by the new recommendations. “This vocalises exactly what every grass-roots doctor in the UK passionately believes: that medical training should be returned to the profession and protected from politicians and bureaucrats” said Chris McCullough CEO of RemedyUK “It’s the one thing that might just save UK training which is currently in free-fall. If this report is ignored in any way by the Government they can expect a mass rebellion from the profession.” Following the report’s publication, Sir John has called on the Government to adopt the recommendations in full and as a priority. A Department of Health (DH) spokesman said: ‘We welcome Sir John Tooke's final report. It's an excellent piece of work and its contents have found favour with a wide cross section of the medical profession and others involved in medical education and training.’ The DH is expected to produce a full response shortly. A quick guide to the final Tooke report Recommendations affecting the Department of Health (DH) • DH should appoint a single Senior Responsible Officer to oversee medical education and ensure stronger lines of accountability (recommendation 6) • All four UK departments of health, together with their chief medical officers, should be involved in any moves to change medical career structures (recommendation 10) • DH should ‘urgently review’ its workforce planning system and strengthen its ‘medical workforce advisory machinery’. It should ‘recognise the burgeoning supply of medical graduates it has commissioned and make explicit its plans for the optimal use of their skills’ (recommendations 12 and 16) • DH to relinquish its powers of overseeing medical education to a new NHS Medical Education England (NHS:MEE) (recommendation 47) Recommendations affecting trainees • Doctors should be given greater opportunities to train in medical management to boost the number of medically qualified managers (recommendation 19) • The link between F1 and F2 should be severed for 2009 graduates with the content of the F1 year reviewed (recommendations 31 and 32) • F2 year to be incorporated as the first year of Core Specialty Training (recommendation 33) • At the end of F1, doctors will be selected into one of four broad-based specialty stems e.g. medical disciplines, surgical disciplines, family medicine. Choice of final specialty to be delayed (recommendation 34) • Doctors should be able to interrupt their training for a year or longer if it will ‘enhance their career and contribution to the NHS’ (recommendation 39) • Selection into Higher Specialty Training (to the role of Specialist Registrar) to be informed by the Royal Colleges (recommendation 40) • Sucessful completion of Higher Specialty Training will lead to a CCT (recommendation 43) • The length of GP training to be lengthened to five years (recommendation 45) Recommendations affecting deaneries and trusts • Trusts should give doctors in training more representation in their management structures (recommendation 20) • The function of deaneries in England should be formally reviewed (recommendation 24) • Postgraduate medical deans should have strong ‘accountability links’ to medical schools and SHAs (recommendation 25) • Responsibility for the local delivery of postgraduate medical training should be a specific part of the remit of trust medical directors (recommendation 28) Recommendations affecting PMETB and the GMC • PMETB should be ‘assimilated’ within the GMC to provide a continuous link between undergraduate and postgraduate education (recommendation 30) |