Pressure will pile on health secretary Nicola Sturgeon after it emerged the number of training places for junior doctors across Scotland is to be cut over the next three years.
At a time when NHS Fife has blamed overnight closures of Kirkcaldy’s accident and emergency unit on a lack of staff, the number of trainees recruited to the NHS nationally this year has been cut by over 60. A further 100 junior doctor posts will go next year and recruitment will be cut by another 300 in 2012.
Fears have been expressed that this reduction in trainees will lead to increased shift and rota problems for the country’s health chiefs, some of whom are already struggling to comply with the European Working Time Directive.
The situation has been described as “ludicrous” by one Fife politician who claimed the system was flawed. Fife Council Labour group leader Alex Rowley spoke following a meeting on Tuesday with NHS Fife’s operational division chief executive John Wilson and medical director Gordon Birnie to discuss the crisis surrounding accident and emergency cover in the region.
Also at the meeting were Kirkcaldy MSP Marilyn Livingstone and independent councillor Andrew Rodger, who have also pledged to lobby Ms Sturgeon on the matter when she returns from her honeymoon.
NHS Fife has repeatedly been forced to implement its contingency plan to downgrade A&E at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, and suspend acute medical admissions overnight, with emergency cases sent straight to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline.
A lack of staff and trouble recruiting locum doctors has been blamed amid fears that keeping both units open while short-staffed would compromise patient safety.
“The key message I got from Dr Birnie was the system in place for supplying junior doctors is partly leading to this problem,” said Mr Rowley.
“According to NHS Fife the Scottish Government is reducing the number of people going through training because by 2014 there will be too many doctors in the system for the posts available. That seems to be a ludicrous position when you see the situation we’re in in Fife, where we can’t keep A&E open.
“This is a problem of the Scottish Government’s making and we need to put pressure on the secretary for health. They are taking trainees out of the system but in Fife we don’t have enough junior doctors to support the work being done in the region.”
Mrs Livingstone added that she accepted NHS Fife was doing everything it could with the resources it had but said little would change unless its junior doctor allocation was increased.
Mrs Livingstone said, “We were told categorically they could not guarantee A&E would always remain open.
“They said they would try everything in their power to keep it open but as long as they don’t have their full quota of junior doctors, if someone goes off sick, patient safety is at risk.”
While agreeing that Ms Sturgeon should be forced to act, Councillor Rodger also called on NHS Fife to be more open about its problems.
“I believe the senior management and the chairman should prescribe them selves a good dose of transparency,” he said.
“NHS Fife received 201 junior doctors for training last August. Some will leave after completing their training and take up other posts, and some will go off sick.
“Let’s make it quite clear this is the same scenario for all health boards in Scotland.”
Photo used under a Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user heipei.