Shorter training period for junior doctors urged: Proposals for overhaul of career structure

The Government was yesterday urged to improve specialist training for junior doctors and cut their training period from 12 to 7 years, enabling them to compete for consultant jobs earlier.

Patients' organisations and doctors' leaders welcomed the report from an inquiry team led by Kenneth Calman, the Chief Medical Officer, which also called for a rapid increase in the number of consultants to make the proposals work.

Under the blueprint presented to Virginia Bottomley, Secretary of State for Health, registrar and senior registrar posts will be merged into a single training grade and a new certification scheme will be introduced to enable public and doctors alike to tell the fully trained specialist from the junior.

The certificate will be awarded by the General Medical Council on the advice of the medical Royal Colleges. The training period for most doctors will be cut to seven years from 1995.

Legislation, expected in the autumn to give force to the new UK Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training, is likely to include for the first time a statutory appeals machinery for junior doctors who feel they have been wrongly refused the qualification.

Graham Winyard, the Government's deputy chief medical officer, told a conference in London on medical staffing yesterday that junior doctors spent too much of their time on routine non-medical tasks.

Martin McNichol, chairman of the NHS Trust Federation, told the conference that the next generation of consultants would be employed on short-term contracts, renewable every five years or so, to carry out a more clearly- specified job.

The Chief Medical Officer made clear in his report that implementing its recommendations would have 'significant resource implications'. However, the Government believes many of the improvements can be achieved at minimal cost by, for example, converting the bulk of senior registrar posts into consultant posts.

Some initial Department of Health estimates show that the current annual increase in consultant numbers of about 2 per cent may have to rise to 7 per cent over five years.

Report of the Working Group on Specialist Medical Training, Health Publications Unit, Heywood Stores, Manchester Road, Heywood, Lancashire OL1 2PZ, free.

Leading article, page 21