DAUK has told national radio listeners that doctors’ career progression is being hindered by a lack of specialty training posts.
Dr Shonnelly Novintan, DAUK Learn Not Blame lead, said hundreds of resident doctors will have no choice but to leave medicine or practise abroad.
Speaking to listeners of LBC’s Drivetime programme, Dr Novintan said: “You have this bottleneck.
Training posts
“Everyone is applying for everything out of fear of not being able to have a stable income.
“The BMA has put pressure on the Government to come up with a better solution because, from a financial perspective, the tax payer is paying to train each medical student.
“And if they can’t find a job there is no solution other than to look elsewhere for employment or to look abroad.”
The NHS is currently short of around 8,850 doctors. The UK has fewer doctors and nurses per person than most of its peer countries, with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being spent every year on agency staff.
NHS training bottlenecks
DAUK has highlighted the issue of bottlenecks in specialty training in blogs by members of our medical student committee.
Dr Novintan said that she also faces a ‘bottleneck’ after two years of core surgical training.
She told LBC: “I’ve done my foundation training and have finished two years of core surgical training. Then I tried to apply for surgical specialty training, but was unsuccessful.
“I’m now skilled as a surgeon. It’s important to maintain our skillset, or we will lose the skills we’ve been working tirelessly for.”
Listen to Dr Novintan’s interview on the DAUK Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/p/DNDG4A_Mqs0/?hl=en and https://www.instagram.com/p/DNDHpc3MIG4/?hl=en
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