Almost 7,000 junior doctors at risk of falling behind on training after helping to fight Covid

Ministers inject £30m to provide doctors with one-to-one catch up training

Thousands of junior doctors have fallen behind in their training because of the Covid pandemic (PA)

Almost 7,000 junior doctors who treated patients during the Covid pandemic are at risk of falling behind with their training, potentially causing staffing shortages and costing taxpayers a potential £260m.

The worst-case scenario estimate of the impact of the pandemic on frontline medics has prompted ministers to inject an extra £30m to try to help doctors finish training so they can progress their careers.

Ensuring medics progress into their next roles is viewed as crucial to ensuring the health service has the doctors it needs to try and reduce the massive waiting list for operations caused by the pandemic.

Thousands of junior doctors were redeployed to critical care units and makeshift intensive care wards during the Covid waves which saw more than 400,000 patients admitted to hospital. Many worked extra shifts, for longer and often without normal levels of supervision.

Junior doctors rotate through hospitals and wards and are required to meet specific targets and skills so they can progress to the next stage before becoming a consultant.

Health Education England (HEE), which is responsible for more than £5bn of NHS training, has warned of “significant disruption” to the education of doctors, many of whom could be forced to extend their training before adancing to the next stage of their careers. Some posts could be left vacant, or doctors forced to act up while trying to catch up on their skills.

During the height of the Covid crisis almost all training was cancelled for months and many trainee anaesthetists and surgeons were unable to do any work while they cared for severely ill Covid patients.

In a worst case scenario, HEE’s medical director Professor Wendy Reid said as many as 6,850 extensions could be required, which would cost £260 million.

HEE told The Independent it was launching a recovery plan as an “urgent priority”.

The Department of Health and Social Care has given HEE £30 million, of which £12.7 million will go direct to NHS trusts to help them plan for extra training for doctors and to deliver one to one training where needed.

Earlier this month The Independent revealed almost 700 anaesthetists who were vital to the care of Covid patients during the pandemic have been told they will no longer have jobs on the NHS training scheme from August due to a lack of places.

This is despite the NHS being short of hundreds of anaesthetists who will be vital in provider anaesthesia for surgeries to help cut the NHS waiting list which has now reached five million people.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the £30m recovery fund will provide tailored training based on individual needs of doctors.

Speaking in the House of Commons, health secretary Matt Hancock said: “In March we committed £7bn of further funding for healthcare services — including £1 billion to address backlogs from the pandemic and that’s taken our additional funding for Covid-19 to £92 billion .

“We’re also helping the NHS recover medical training – and I can confirm to the house an additional £30 million for postgraduate medical training. Mr Speaker, the formula for beating the backlog is this: looking closely at demand as we emerge from this pandemic, putting the right resources to meet this demand and putting in place an ambitious programme of improvement in the NHS.”

Professor Sheona MacLeod, deputy medical director of education reform at HEE said: “We are aware of the personal impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on doctors in training, and on their educators, and we have been working with partners to identify how best to enable effective training recovery.

“This funding will support trusts in the identification of individualised training needs and in exploring more tailored ways of enabling trainees to catch up on their competencies. It will benefit current trainees affected by the pandemic and advance our aims for more flexible individualised training in the future.”