The NHS is training up to 200 apprentices over the next two years with the pilot launching this upcoming year at Anglia Ruskin University + East Suffolk & North Essex NHS Foundation Trust. Here are some key details: - 5-year apprenticeship programme - Students are paid 4.6K, 17.6K, 19.1K, 20.6K, 22k over the 5 years - Graduates will receive a GMC-accredited MbCHB degree, recognised internationally, with no mention of apprenticeship - 80% of their time will be spent at University in lectures or on a placement at a hospital and 20% in a non-clinical role (ie. porter work, clinical coding, discharger planner, note summarising in primary care) -Students will be entitled to 27 days of paid annual leave My main thoughts: 1️⃣ Is their work more valuable than ___'s work? This is a massive slap in the face for students training to be nurses, midwives, and other types of healthcare professionals who often also come from widening participation programme backgrounds, and are expected to do shift work as part of their degree (with a minimum hour requirement) and are not paid for this. 2️⃣ Is their work more valuable than my work? As part of clinical teams I have scribed, taken bloods, run ECGs, chased up scans and blood tests, etc. for free. If you paid me to work a 20% non-clinical role during my medical school holidays, I would gladly do so. But in my non-apprenticeship medical degree, I often found myself fighting other medical students for shift work during my university breaks, or could not find open roles that would accommodate my narrow and specific availability. 3️⃣ How would apprentice doctors actually help plug the medical workforce gap? The government has answered this by saying: The Medical Doctor Degree Apprenticeship will offer a new route into the profession, still offering a medical degree but taking away some of the financial burden associated with the traditional route for individuals in training. This would help attract talented candidates from across the country, who are currently locked out due to geographical or socio-economic reasons. But does it just create more junior doctors without addressing the bottlenecks in higher medical training (speciality training), and not addressing the issues of high burnout rates, poor pay, and long hours? What do you think - feel free to disagree with me in the comments! #medicalstudent #medicaleducation #currentevents #doctor #medicine #medicaltraining #medicalaffairs #juniordoctor
Melanie Wedgbury
9mo
I disagee with the nursing comment given that there are also Nursing apprentiships that work in a similar manner. Medicine is still elitist (mostly)..it descriminates against the poor as the fees and ability to undertake the course are significantly different for those from underpriveledged and deprived areas when compared ro those from middle class and upper class backgrounds. Apprentiships will assist in diversifying the workforce and oppening up the career to more people. The disadvantage is another divide will happen- between aprentice and non apprentise as there has been the political narrative against Physician Associates. There will be less inventive to pay a conciderable amount of money for a medical dwgree when the environment is such a minefield!
Unfair to non-apprentice doctors who do more clinical work and get less support. The scheme does not address the root causes of the medical workforce gap. The gap is due to poor working conditions, low morale, and high burnout rates among doctors. Misguided to think that apprentice doctors can fill the workforce gap. Valerie Cai
Rebecca Ford
8mo
I agree and I know similar questions have been raised around the Council table at RCOPhth, and no doubt at other Colleges. No one from NHSE has presented compelling evidence that doctor apprentices will fulfil enough useful workforce role to compensate for the time needed for their supervision, or explained how sufficient supervision and teaching will be achieved by already overstretched clinical staff. I applaud the move to broaden the pool from which we recruit doctors, but apprenticeships risk a 2 tier system of those who can pay for traditional med school versus those who can’t. Why not simply admit that we need more doctors from more diverse backgrounds and offer more scholarships into the training we already know work? Or abolish uni fees for med students? I was one of the last lucky cohort to get through uni with no fees and with available grants. Would I personally have gone to Cambridge and Oxford for my training, with all the benefits of those institutions, if that would have left me with huge debts compared to an untested but cheaper apprenticeship route? Probably not…
Imran Masood
8mo
This whole concept is a joke. Please tell me if any country in the world comes up with hare-brain ideas such as these. The reason why medical graduates leave the uk and go abroad is fundamentally the dysfunctional system they work it. The NHS has enough funding if it wasn’t wasted on poor management of a dysfunctional system created by successive politicians who haven’t got a clue. No one in government talks about preventing illness it’s all about pumping folk full of drugs. Lifestyle medicine is ignored in preference to drugs.
Salman Khattak
8mo
This is just a ploy to exploit students for cheap labor. Med school is hard enough. I have a problem with structuring education to fit industry. Education should be geared towards free thinking and allowing young minds to learn the core medical subjects in depth to become well rounded Doctors. Britain unfortunately is a society geared towards conformity. If anyone sticks out they wil knock you down with aplomb. I’m not impressed by British Medical Education. Successive Governments have tried to get blood out of a stone without adequately funding healthcare. Working in the NHS is misery.
Kiran Sodha
8mo
I literally don’t get it. Looks like a medical degree to me, probably with less breaks for holidays and doing non-clinical work instead. And in return barely any student debt. I just paid off my £25k student loan a few years ago. I would literally have no hope in the current system to be a doctor and live reasonably as a junior doctor post degree without an opportunity like this
Manali Reddy
8mo
The UK govt/NHS is utterly clueless about literally everything. Totally incapable of thinking long term, like atleast a 10 year plan if not 100 years. So evident from the political instability. Noise, half baked solutions, headless chicken activities. It's almost like the govt has been hit by a mental health crisis. They should stop spending on useless things and focus on making quality health care education affordable for doctors, nurses and allied staff.
Alexandro Basso
9mo
The MDDA is not the solution to expanding widening participation or plugging the medical workforce gap. Gov should be expanding funding and support to current, traditional (degree) undergraduates and graduate entry medical students.
Final Year Medical Student at University of Southampton
9moI agree with all of the above. It's worth pointing out that the financial inequalities extend beyond apprentices receiving a salary whilst traditional students are unpaid. Traditional students also have to pay tuition fees to their university and thus graduate with huge amounts of student debt, whereas apprentices do not have to pay any tuition fees. As the first in my family to attend university, I am keen to encourage widening participation schemes in medicine. However, this programme simply feels unfair to traditional students who are unpaid and have to pay tuition fees for the same qualification.