Junior doctors' training threat

15 January 2010

CALLS have been made for an end to the Department of Health review of training funding amid fears junior doctors could lose out on millions of pounds.

The BMA Junior Doctor Committee has called on the DoH to stop its review of the Multi Professional Education and Training Levy, which will decide the future distribution of NHS training funding. The review looks at the funding of both undergraduate education and postgraduate training for all healthcare workers.

Changes could come into force as soon as April and the BMA’s JDC fears the junior doctor training budget could be slashed. JDC chair Shree Datta said: “We are seriously alarmed that the impact of this review has not been thought through. The idea that the NHS could press ahead with this is simply dangerous. the Department of Health needs to be very careful that they don’t end up making the training of doctors so unattractive or the funding system so unstable that hospitals no longer want to do it.”

Junior doctors’ salaries are paid in part by their employer for the service they provide to patients and in part by the DoH for their time spent training. The review is threatening to reduce the training component of their salary, which will make it more expensive for hospitals to employ junior doctors.