Scottish doctors left jobless as a result of a flawed recruitment process will be forced to go through the same discredited procedure in applying for new posts, The Herald has learned.
Hundreds of junior doctors were facing unemployment this autumn because of a major shake-up of medical training and a new method used to recruit doctors for training posts.
The new system for selecting junior doctors for consultant training posts has been dogged by problems, including trouble with the online medical training application system (MTAS), now largely discredited.
The result was that hundreds of doctors were left without a job this summer. Those facing unemployment were given respite when Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced their temporary contracts would be extended for three months until the end of October.
However, those doctors who want to continue in their posts will have to reapply using the same controversial process.
In an e-mail leaked to The Herald, one of the most senior doctors involved in the MTAS recruitment method said the same system will be used.
The new training regime, called Modernising Medical Careers, replaced a system under which staff progressed by applying for a series of short-term graded positions with on-the-job training programmes which last several years, running from entry through to qualification.
Many junior doctors fear the nature of the online application form and the interview process that follows do not allow them to reflect the level of experience they have in the way that an ordinary CV would do. The system does not allow doctors applying for posts to submit a CV.
Dr Colin Semple, associate postgraduate dean of NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in the west of Scotland, admits in his e-mail that using this system again will prove contentious.
He wrote: "I expect the absence of a CV to stimulate some heat. I should emphasise that this decision was not an NES one and representations are being made. The justification for this is that it is not possible to anonymise a CV while the generic form has different sections that make this easy."
Kevin Cormack, spokesman for Remedy Scotland, a pressure group formed by junior doctors as a result of the chaos in the recruitment process this year, said: "This is a piece of bloody nonsense, it's ridiculous and completely goes against what the government's own review group said, which is that any future selection process should include a CV and shouldn't use the MTAS system at all.
"Doctors were given an assurance that they would not have to go through this form of selection again. That has turned out to be a false promise."
He added: "Several of my colleagues are on these three-month contracts and have nowhere to go afterwards. I doubt they will be pleased to find out that they will have to use the MTAS form again.
"A lot of people have been hoping their contracts would be extended further because really there is nowhere for them to go. All the jobs in Scotland have been filled."
Dr Graeme Eunson, chairman of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee, said he will be meeting representatives from the executive and NES next week to discuss the recruitment process.
He said: "We certainly would have no confidence in a system which relied purely on the application form which was designed last year, because it has been largely discredited. Juniors feel a CV is necessary to give them the confidence they have had a fair chance."
A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents.
"Recruitment under Modernising Medical Careers has concluded for this year and we see no reason for previous MMC procedures to apply to those unfilled posts. A number of posts remain unfilled and we are in discussions with NES as to how those should be filled. We expect CVs to be part of the process.
"Arrangements are in place to support those junior doctors who did not secure permanent posts until the end of October.
"The recruitment process under MMC is being looked at on a UK basis. No decisions have yet been made about what form this should take for next year's recruitment round."
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