By Jaimie Kaffash
10 May 2010
Cuts to training budgets for doctors are already being made, before the majority of NHS efficiency savings have kicked in, medics have claimed.
Junior doctors attending their annual British Medical Association conference this weekend were warned that training was ‘under threat from many fronts’.
Shree Datta, BMA junior doctors’ committee chair, told delegates: ‘Almost half of UK doctors surveyed by the BMA are missing out on essential training. Working extra shifts to prop up understaffed rotas means less time to learn new procedures, less time to practise our skills, less time to learn and less time to become better doctors.’
The warning came as the NHS seeks to make £20bn efficiency savings in the three years from 2011 to 2014.
Speaking to Public Finance after the conference, Johann Malawana, chair of the JDC’s education committee, called for funding for doctors training to be ring-fenced.
He said that they were ‘not arguing for a significant increase in funding’, but claimed that funding had already been reduced by recent reforms. ‘We have seen the reforms over the last two years being used as a cover for removing money from the medical training budget,’ he said.
Meanwhile papers leaked last week revealed that England’s ten strategic health authorities are preparing for a 15% cut in the national training budget, equivalent to £650m a year between now and 2014.
The documents revealed that more than 500 clinical training posts would be lost in the East of England. Dr Peter Carter, chair of the Royal College of Nursing, criticised politicians from the main parties who have all claimed that frontline NHS spending will be protected. ‘If plans to cut training places for nurses go ahead on this scale, it would be nothing short of a disaster, and would directly hit the front line,’ he said.
10 May 2010
Cuts to training budgets for doctors are already being made, before the majority of NHS efficiency savings have kicked in, medics have claimed.
Junior doctors attending their annual British Medical Association conference this weekend were warned that training was ‘under threat from many fronts’.
Shree Datta, BMA junior doctors’ committee chair, told delegates: ‘Almost half of UK doctors surveyed by the BMA are missing out on essential training. Working extra shifts to prop up understaffed rotas means less time to learn new procedures, less time to practise our skills, less time to learn and less time to become better doctors.’
The warning came as the NHS seeks to make £20bn efficiency savings in the three years from 2011 to 2014.
Speaking to Public Finance after the conference, Johann Malawana, chair of the JDC’s education committee, called for funding for doctors training to be ring-fenced.
He said that they were ‘not arguing for a significant increase in funding’, but claimed that funding had already been reduced by recent reforms. ‘We have seen the reforms over the last two years being used as a cover for removing money from the medical training budget,’ he said.
Meanwhile papers leaked last week revealed that England’s ten strategic health authorities are preparing for a 15% cut in the national training budget, equivalent to £650m a year between now and 2014.
The documents revealed that more than 500 clinical training posts would be lost in the East of England. Dr Peter Carter, chair of the Royal College of Nursing, criticised politicians from the main parties who have all claimed that frontline NHS spending will be protected. ‘If plans to cut training places for nurses go ahead on this scale, it would be nothing short of a disaster, and would directly hit the front line,’ he said.
