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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.
Remedy launches Employment Agency Awareness Campaign PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 05 February 2010
  • What has Employment Agency Legislation done for you?
  • GMC, PMETB and the Quality of Training Posts

What has Employment Agency Legislation done for you?

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“Congratulations, we want to make you an offer”.

“Great. Where will I be working?”

“We can’t tell you”.

“What will I be doing?”

“We can’t tell you”.

“It’s a definite contract of employment, isn’t it?”

“We can’t confirm that”.

“Well I’m waiting to hear from someone else, can I let you know later?”

“You have 48 hours to accept or reject this opportunity”.

“Can I change my mind when I find out what you’re offering me?”

“No. The GMC might not like that”.

“But what about my rights?”

“Rights??? You should consider yourself lucky to have got this far.”

We don’t know of many other professions where this Kafkaesque nightmare would be considered acceptable.

Remedy’s legal team have succeeded in preventing a change to Employment Agency legislation, which we consider significantly impacts on the rights of applicants. We have prepared a briefing document which we urge all applicants for training jobs to read.

We have also designed a poster to highlight this campaign. Please print out a copy and post it in your department, your doctors mess or other appropriate areas. Click here to download it.

We will continue to fight for the interests of doctors. In the long term we believe that the place of Deaneries in the doctor-employer relationship needs to be very carefully scrutinised. Neither fish nor fowl, neither trainer nor employer – and with power comes responsibility.

 

GMC, PMETB and the Quality of Training Posts

Remedy has been scrutinising the plans to merge the GMC with PMETB. Generally speaking we support this move, but there are a couple of sections in the Patel review that we were surprised to read.

The first was in the section entitled ‘Approach to Education and Training’, where we found that:-

Where there are failings in delivery [of education], the options available to the GMC are limited. Withdrawing training recognition will always be a last resort because patients rely on trainees to deliver day to day care. We find this to be a defeatist attitude, and one which undermines the whole nature of training and service. If a ‘training post’ does not deliver training then the post should be redefined as a ‘service post’ and it should not be part of a training programme.

We urge PMETB to look more closely at this.

We were even more surprised to find buried in Unlucky Section 13 the statement that:-

[the GMC] should look again at the possibility of uncoupling the completion of training leading to eligibility to take up consultant and GP posts, and inclusion on the specialist and GP registers. Eligibility for inclusion in those registers might come at a later stage,

This statement seems to have the word ‘SUBCONSULTANT’ running through it. Or possibly the historical phrase ‘SENIOR REGISTRAR’ is preparing for a comeback tour.

You can read thew full report, and submit your own comments to the GMC before March 9th