Hewitt dragged to the Chamber – Labour MPs walk out.
Finally, Andrew Lansley dragged Hewitt into the House of Commons to make a statement on MTAS.
Naturally, there were no apologies. The full transcript is available from Hansard (here) and is worth reading. It is not possible in a transcript to convey the nauseating and patronising tones of the Secretary of State by reading the written word.
For that, you will have to view the House of Commons video, which can be found here.
It may only be available for another couple of weeks. Dr Crippen is not sufficiently computer literate to find a way of copying and saving it for future reference. Any help gratefully accepted!
The general exodus from the chamber when Hewitt stood up, particularly from the Labour benches, does not say much for the interest our elected representatives have in the fate of junior hospital doctors. Or maybe Labour MPs find listening to Hewitt too distressing.
A couple of excerpts from the transcipt:
(Hewitt) The hon. Gentleman asked whether there would be 8,000 jobless doctors. There will be nothing of the kind. Of the 32,300 eligible applicants, the vast majority—over 29,000—are already working in the NHS, on foundation programmes, in other training places or in other medical posts in the NHS. Those doctors will continue to be needed, so the shroud-waving about unemployed doctors is absurd.
That means there will “only” be 3,300 unemployed doctors. So that is all right then.
Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab): Will the Secretary of State allow me to emphasise how inadequate the previous system was? Did not she receive, as I did, complaints from women doctors and black doctors that they did not get a fair look-in for training opportunities, and that they felt that the old system was run as an old boy network? And can she give an undertaking to one junior doctor who emailed me: will a majority of the review panel be composed of people who did not set up the original scheme?
We know from the work of Dr Sam Everington that under the old system, Dr Smith and Dr Jones were always more likely to get a job than Dr Patel. But has Frank Field read the Templeton/Black email, and its suggestion of a hidden agenda? Will MMC perpetuate discrimination against foreign medical graduates?