Dr Haseena Wazir@DrHWazir
The suggested threat from @wesstreeting that additional speciality training posts for doctors could be withdrawn if doctors strike is extraordinary.
Medical Consultants, Surgeons, GPs, anaesthetists, radiologists, and psychiatrists have to go through a speciality training post to finish their training. If you cut training posts, you are directly cutting the number of specialists the NHS will have in the future, that patients rely on.
So what is being suggested here is essentially this: if doctors strike, the Government may reduce the number of future NHS specialists.
That’s what the Health Secretary is suggesting.
Doctors do not control how many training posts exist. The Government does. Workforce planning is a Government responsibility. The current bottlenecks, where tens of thousands of doctors apply for a limited number of training posts, were created by workforce planning decisions over many years.
We already have a situation where tens of thousands of doctors apply for a limited number of training posts every year while the NHS says it has workforce shortages and patients face long waiting lists.
The solution to that problem is obviously to train more specialists, not fewer.
Using training posts as leverage in a dispute is not workforce planning. It is political pressure using the future NHS workforce as a bargaining chip. That should concern the public as much as it concerns doctors.
Because fewer training posts today means fewer Consultants and GPs tomorrow. Fewer Consultants and GPs means longer waiting lists, overcrowded A&E departments, and worse access to care.
Threatening to reduce training opportunities if doctors strike does not solve any of those problems. It just makes the workforce crisis worse.
Training the future NHS workforce should never be used as a negotiating tool.
bmj.com/content/392/bm…
