Prize-winning author issues plea to Streeting on doctors

Thousands to miss out on training places, says medical union

- LYDIA SPENCER-ELLIOTT

Women’s Prize winner and NHS doctor Rachel Clarke has issued a plea to health secretary Wes Streeting as resident doctors face unemployment due to a lack of training posts.

This summer, some 20,000 doctors are expected to miss out on specialty training places, while other trained doctors are at risk of unemployment, according to the British Medical Association.

Although the NHS is in desperate need of trained doctors, last year 4.7 applications were made for every specialty post advertised, with the number set to rise again this year. Without specialty training, resident doctors’ careers stagnate as they are unable to follow the traditional path to becoming consultants, often leaving them unemployed or seeking an alternate means of income.

Speaking to The Independent after winning the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction for her fourth book The Story of a Heart, Clarke said: “It’s almost unbelievable. In the last few years, we’ve gone from a situation where we were desperately short of doctors into one now where young doctors are finding themselves unemployed.”