Statement regarding past system failures at the Anaesthetic National Recruitment Office
3 January 2023
The anaesthetic training recruitment round of autumn 2021 left many doctors with poor and unjust experiences. Health Education England commissioned a Significant Incident Review of the practices of the Anaesthetic National Recruitment Office as a direct consequence of this.
This report, obtained under Freedom of Information (Freedom of Information Act 2000) makes for a shocking read. It describes a litany of failures and systemic shortcomings which led to such a poor performance from the recruitment office. It is available to read here.
In place of releasing a statement on this at the time, the Association of Anaesthetists instead sought to seek assurances that the recommendations from this review have been implemented, and the quality of practice irreversibly improved such that a critical incident of this nature does not happen in future. It is vital that anaesthetists of the future see our recruitment processes as being robust, efficient, fair, and person-centred.
We filed a further Freedom of Information request on 22 September 2023 asking for evidence of improvements in practice in line with the list of recommendations made by the Significant Incident Report over the two years since its publication. We were supplied with such a document on 27 November 2023, which you will find below.
While the report details evidence of some administrative processes, it is clear that more system-wide changes need to be made in order that the standard of recruitment process is improved. We commit to working with the Royal College of Anaesthetists on helping to energise and inform this process.
Stuart Edwardson
Chair, Association of Anaesthetists Trainee Committee
Response to Freedom of Information request