MTAS - Back To The Future
Finally, sense. MTAS, the doctor's recruitment website that led to chaos and stress in the lives of junior doctors (including my brother-in-law) is to be scrapped.
Actually, it's merely not going to be turned back on, having had the switch thrown a few weeks back. It's hard to see what else they could have done in the circumstances.
This is rather overdue and isn't any reason whatsoever to conclude that a post-Blair government is going to be in any way sensible, but the failures of the system are the failures of Blairism. In particular, inexpert use of technology to centralise and de-professionalise a potentially stroppy part of the workforce, leading to them become very actually stroppy indeed. Long may it rot. Next, NPfIT and ID cards, eh? Damn, there are so many to choose from.
Further bloggage from the estimable NHSBlogDoc.
well, I really can't bring
well, I really can't bring myself to feel too sorry for UK doctors, whether working for the NHS or privately.
Over here in Belgium, a GP gets approx. 22 euros for a visit to his surgery, a specialist about 50 euros. A far cry, I would suggest, from the £100,000 family doctors apparently pull in in the UK these days.
Er. a) we're talking about
Er.
a) we're talking about junior doctors, not GPs. My brother-in-law isn't exactly rolling in cash, I can assure you, having just had to move house for work and had a second child in the last few months, and then finding out he might not have a job come September.
b) the 'GPs on thousands' is mostly Government spin
c) the key point here is that the DoH has spent millions of our money on a system that works substantially less well than the one it has replaced. Again. I don't feel that should be ignored just because doctors are professionals.
Anyway, there's a prime bullshitter on the radio now discussing it.
Heh - it was Lord Hunt. I
Heh - it was Lord Hunt. I know about him.
Was that the Berkshire Hunt?
Was that the Berkshire Hunt?
Oh, terribly sorry, Tom, I
Oh, terribly sorry, Tom, I was under the impression that quite a few junior doctors in fact went on to become GPs? And those who don't presumably go on to become (well-paid) specialists. In fact, I thought that being a junior doctor was simply part of any doctor's career-path, in the same way as trainee solicitors for instance had to do some practical work.
I don't recall any gust of protest from GPs when the £100,000 story broke, but perhaps I just wasn't reading the papers at that time.