A computer system crash left hundreds of doctors unable to submit applications for ST3 training posts last night.
Junior doctor leaders were today pressing for an extension to the deadline following the failure of the Oriel system.
The Doctors Association said Oriel had been “plagued” with problems for a while.
Co-founder Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden said: “The latest situation causes alarm and distress for many junior doctors across the country, adding to the stress of the application process itself.
“The situation is frankly unacceptable, it is clear that lessons have not been learned. Not only should the deadlines now be extended, Health Education England as the contract owner, should conduct a thorough review of why this happens each and every year.”
After receiving numerous emails from anxious junior doctors who had been up through the night attempting to complete their applications DAUK reached out to Heath Education England requesting an extension of the deadline.
This morning DAUK were contacted by Health Education England who have granted DAUK’s request for an extension. This news is very welcome and will no doubt reassure doctors who had been unable to complete applications. However, we recognise that this has caused significant undue stress and we will be exploring with HEE how this can be prevented in future.
See their formal response:
Oriel was unavailable on the night of Tuesday 18 February 2020 between the hours of 21:25 and 07:50 on Wednesday 19 February due to a technical problem with the hosting provider. To ensure that no applicants are disadvantaged as a result of the unplanned downtime, the Round 2 application deadline has been extended to 10:00 hrs on Monday 24 February 2020. If any applicant is unable to complete their application during the extended application window please contact [email protected]
Edit: DAUK would also like to thank Lucie Cocker from the JDC for her hard work on this overnight which no doubt helped to secure this response.
