HOSPITAL patients could be put at risk by ‘incompetent junior doctors’ who have not had enough training, according to a survey led by an Oxford registrar.
A survey of 615 foundation level doctors was led by Dr Ben Dean, an orthopaedic registrar who works at hospitals in Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley.
The results were published in the British Medical Journal Careers magazine. It revealed that 87 per cent of those asked believed that “incompetent trainees could obtain satisfactory results from workplace-based assessments”.
In the article Dr Dean said that ‘tick-box’ assessments junior doctors faced meant some sub-standard doctors were being passed as fit to practise when they should not be.
He said: “The current regulation of medical training is producing professionals who invariably look competent on paper but are not necessarily competent and confident in reality.”
The poll was carried out by Remedy UK, a pressure group for more training for doctors. The Department of Health said medical training programmes were focused on quality.
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