Hundreds of job offers to doctors axed in blunder

HUNDREDS of junior doctors offered jobs at hospitals have had the offers withdrawn after a glitch in the recruitment process.

The Royal College of Physicians, which is to rerun the process, blamed human error for the “dreadful situation”.

The British Medical Association (BMA) said it was “appalled”.

Junior medics entering their third year of specialist training had made plans to start the jobs in a few months.

The positions, in 24 fields, were offered through ST3 Recruitment, a national system for appointing doctors.

But last week the college found some candidates had been given wrong interview marks when they were transferred from one computer program to another, leading to a “significant number” of incorrect rankings.

The college has written to all medics affected, saying it was “deeply sorry” but was rerunning the recruitment process.

BMA council chairman Chaand Nagpaul and BMA junior doctors’ committee chairman Jeeves Wijesuriya protested to college president Professor Jane Dacre.

They said trainees had put down deposits on homes and arranged moves after receiving the now-cancelled offers.

They said that the emotional and financial impact on the junior doctors was “unacceptable”.

The college pledged to do its “utmost” to help those who had accepted offers and made “unretractable commitments” based on those offers.

It added: “We will learn from our mistake and make any changes necessary to fix it.”

The junior doctors’ offers process will begin again on May 14.