theMEDICALSTUDENT
March 2014
The voice of London's Medical Students/www.themedicalstudent.co.uk
New Foundation Programme What it means for us >> page 4
The Bigger Picture
Medicine as an Art >> page 10
Getting Published
Our top tips >> page 14
The First Female Doctor Elizabeth Garrett > page 7
Could Early GMC Registration Jeopardise Medical Education? Government postpones care.data programme Chris Smith
Krishna Dayalji Yes, say the British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Students and Junior Doctors Committees. In our January edition of TMS, we informed our readers of the proposal put forward by Health Education England (HEE) to tackle the persistent problem surrounding foundation programme oversubscription. The plan included moving forward General Medical Council (GMC) registration to the point of graduation, so that medical graduates could practise medicine either privately or through securing a place on the foundation programme by scoring adequately in a new selection test. However, the BMA Medical Students Committee (BMA MSC) and BMA Junior Doctors
Committee (BMA JDC) have argued that this new plan could threaten patient safety as well as harm UK medical education. Furthermore, in place of solving the oversubscription problem, the committees have suggested that the proposal is more likely to perpetuate the issue due to increased competition from European applicants. As part of the proposal, HEE suggested that by removing the current pre-registration year (F1), concerns surrounding patient safety would be resolved. However, the BMA have debated that: ‘If there is a patient concern about the preregistration year, we do not see how it can be resolved simply by moving the date the registration. ‘It should be resolved by
greater emphasis on appropriate supervision, training and support.’ Moreover, the BMA has advised that medical school curricula will be need to altered such that students are wellprepared for registration on graduation. They added that the proposal is a ‘waste of talent to an under-doctered NHS, a waste of personal and public investment in medical training and threatens the long-term security of NHS services in the event that applicants from outside the UK decide to return to their home country.’ Surprised that the proposal had been published before seeking advice from the association, the BMA have written a response letter to HEE, further highlighting the issue noted above. Mr Harrison [cont’n pg.2]
The controversial NHS project, care.data, that would harvest data from medical records has been delayed by six months in the face of opposition from doctors and patients. The announcement was made on the 17th February, following repeated concerns from GPs and patient groups. The British Medical Association led the calls to suspend the programme until people were better informed about it - and given more time to opt out, if necessary. The government announced that the scheme would be postponed for six months until assurances could be made that patient data remains confidential with no identifiable information. Officials claim the data will be used to spot trends and conduct evidencebased-medicine on the largest scale possible and identify poor care. Privacy experts have warned there will be no way for the public to work out who has their medical records, or what purposes their data will be used for. There have been questions raised about commercial companies buying data. The extracted information will contain a person's NHS number, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender. Once live, organisations such as university research departments – but also insurers and drug companies – will be
able to apply to the new Health and Social Care Information Centre to gain access to the database. Last year it emerged that the private health insurer Bupa was one of four firms that had been cleared to access sensitive patient data. Some doctors' groups complained that the scheme, while valuable, was poorly understood and badly explained by NHS England, which has said the majority of the data would be anonymised or made impossible for patients to be identified. All 26 million households in England were sent leaflets about the plan but polls showed about two-thirds of people had not seen them. A number of GPs have opted out all patients registered at their practises in protests, with one GP told he could lose his job as a result. NHS England plans to run an awareness campaign to inform patients about the change. Tim Kelsey, national director for patients and information, said: ‘NHS England exists for patients and we are determined to listen to what they tell us. ‘We have been told very clearly that patients need more time to learn about the benefits of sharing information and their right to object to their information being shared. NHS England was meant to have delivered leaflets about the scheme to every household last month but many patients never received them. Furthermore, [cont’n pg.2]