The findings in the GMC’s annual workforce report will unfortunately come as no surprise to our members. The report highlights a growing crisis with many doctors, both trained in the UK and internationally, being unable to access speciality training and more and more doctors leaving the health service. With growing gaps in the medical workforce and increasing issues with recruitment and retention, this situation is untenable.
We are clear that all doctors must have greater opportunities to access postgraduate medical training, and this must extend to SAS doctors and locally-employed doctors (LEDs). We note with dismay the GMC’s finding that the proportion of UK medical graduates who secured a training place has fallen from 84% in 2014 to 69% last year. In addition, we are increasingly troubled by the way LEDs are relied upon to fill workforce gaps in some trusts. In light of this, we recognise the GMC’s recommendations on addressing barriers to training and career progression for under-represented groups, including international medical graduates (IMGs), while emphasising the need to ensure that UK graduates and existing staff are not disadvantaged.
We reiterate our stance that the current distribution of training posts is unable to meet the needs of healthcare service providers as, in anaesthesia, there are simply not enough posts available. We therefore believe that the government must commit to tackling workforce shortages by funding a significant increase in the number of specialty training posts in anaesthesia.
Ensuring that every doctor is able to pursue opportunities in their career is vital and we therefore support the GMC’s recommendations around both recognising the contributions of IMGs and improving access to training and career progression for all doctors. We look forward to more detail from the government regarding how it will support the workforce in the postgraduate medical training review and 10-year workforce plan.