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Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for
England and the UK's Chief Medical Advisor,
should be summarily sacked.
Dr James Irvine
FRSE DSc FRCEd FRCPath
Formerly Consultant Physician, Royal Infirmary,
Edinburgh
Filed 18 Jul 07
©www.land-care.org.uk
Sir Liam Donaldson was interviewed on Channel
4 ITV yesterday evening (Tuesday 17th July).
He was introduced as the person primarily responsible
for the appalling debacle over the new system whereby junior doctors
apply for, and are appointed to, jobs within NHS hospitals. This
is of key importance not only to the young doctors, but also to
the efficient running of the hospital service.
As Chief Medical Officer for England, he did not
deny that he was the person responsible for a scheme that was so
clearly riddled with unfairness to young doctors that it could not
conceivably provide a competent appointment system. And so it turned
out.
Thousands of young doctors, expensively trained
within the NHS and our Universities, feel desperately let down by
a system that is manifestly unjust. Their complaint is that there
is no possibility of the best applicants being successful within
the jobs available: not by any believable criterion.
As if that was not bad enough, the young doctors
had already undergone the anxiety of their personal details (that
they were required to submit within this scheme) being made widely
available for others to scrutinise. Assurances given by the Department
of Health over basic data protection meant nothing. And that is
a serious offence.
It was all very well for Sir Liam to say that
he was sorry. But sorry is not good enough. To watch him trying
to excuse himself by talking about "teething troubles in a
new system that was aimed at improving the educational content of
Senior House Office posts" was pathetic.
It should have been obvious to him, on the most
superficial of examinations of the proposed system, that it would
lead to major trouble. It is not just a question of being wise after
the event. A Chief Medical Officer's job is to make sure that such
crass mistakes do not happen.
How can one have confidence that this same person,
in his role as the UK's Chief Medical Advisor, is capable of giving
balanced advice to the UK Government in relation to medical emergencies
that may affect the nation. It is frightening that he has been doing
this since 1998.
The situation is so appalling that he should
go - and go now.
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