Harry Waterman

Core psychiatry training has gone from a fill rate of only 67.3% in 2017 to a competition ratio of around 20 applicants per post this year While this superficially might appear to be a good thing it actually highlights significant problems that need to be addressed 1/?

Hundreds to thousands of UK-trained doctors will be unemployed in a matter of weeks as their contracts end this August. Why are we training doctors to leave them jobless? My thanks to @Telegraph for helping me raise this issue. telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…

Strikes could still be avoided if @wesstreeting were to make a credible offer Nothing proposed was sufficient to reverse the erosion of pay or conditions of doctors (conditions he’s called “crap”) There is a reason the @BMAResidents unanimously agreed strikes must go ahead

So Wes has; 🔸Failed to deliver last year’s deal 🔹Refused to talk with RDC since May 🔸Pretended RDC didn’t want to talk 🔹Agreed to talk but not on pay 🔸Now wants strikes called off to talk having offered absolutely nothing?! Meet the new boss, he’s just like the old boss.

At today's RDC meeting, we’ve voted to go ahead with strike action. Last week when we met @wesstreeting we were open to finding solutions to restore pay and improve working conditions. Today, we still do not have a credible offer on the table @Melissa_S_Ryan @RossNieuwoudt

Consultants and SAS doctors in England - look out for your indicative ballot email from @TheBMA today! Wes Streeting called pay restoration "a journey, not an event" - so why have we stopped? Are you prepared to stand up to demand your value is recognised by the government?

We've written to NHS England with concerns about inadequate planning ahead of possible strike action later this week. Attempts to run non-urgent services with fewer doctors risk patient safety. It's imperative that Trusts postpone work to protect urgent and emergency care.

Our indicative ballot for SAS doctors in England is NOW OPEN. Watch this message from your SAS committee chair on why you should vote YES for fair pay and proper recognition. brnw.ch/21wUisE

Consultants in England, we want to restore pay, pensions and value. Are you ready to fight for what we have lost? Vote YES now bma.org.uk/consultantspay

'How dare Drs use RPI when looking to protect their income against inflation'. Not only do government love to use RPI when you owe them money, so do the most of PFI deals so ubiquitous across the NHS...

This is blatantly unsafe. Our strikes have senior doctors covering emergency care. They cannot also cover elective lists. Impossible to be in two places at once. @NHSEngland will put patients at risk with this approach. All trusts must cancel elective activity to avoid harm.

All tiered rotas must end. They assert false equivalences and unsafe interchangeability posing risk to patients. They blur the professional boundaries of all professional groups being clumped together. They also undermine each professional groups’ collective bargaining power.

Are we really going to have to do this all again?? You can’t (shouldn’t) substitute people that aren’t doctors into a job that requires an experienced and specialist doctor! This doesn’t even need explaining 🙄

Northern Resident Doctors 🪧 Regional picket line at the RVI 📆 Friday 25th July ⏰ 8.00am - 11.00am Show Streeting and the Government that if they won’t make a reasonable offer to restore our pay that you are ready to fight for it!

The most pertinent finding of @lengreview was the discrepancy between what PAs and Drs felt PAs were competent to do: Drs are trained to be cautious, careful, and reign in over-confidence. PAs do not demonstrate the same levels of caution, and one needs to ask why that is.

Thank you @wesstreeting. There is much left unsaid in the Review, not least how, proactively, medical workforce planning now moves forward. But there are so many potentially routes to reforming this for the better. Doctor substitution was never the way. Not on on-call rotas, not…

Today’s talks with the Health Secretary were constructive, and we believe there’s a window of opportunity - albeit small - in which the Government can put forward a strong enough proposal to prevent strikes. Full statement: bma.org.uk/bma-media-cent…

Leng may not have gone far enough for some people, but she was spot on with her observations about the way we have messed up postgraduate medical training.

“The trouble is the review… avoids the difficult question of how you set that scope, that limit of what PAs can do.” Responding to the Leng Review, BMA council chair @thomasdolphin has spoken to the BBC about doctors’ concerns over patient safety

Incredibly sad to see trusts already ignoring recommendations made not to allow physician assistants to see undifferentiated patients Patients with psychiatric illness should not be subject to lower standards of care

Pleased @rcgp maintain there’s no role for physician assistants in general practice I look forward to responses from colleges (including my own @rcpsych) -these must include clearly defined and appropriately restrictive national scopes of practice if PAs are to be used safely