'27 doctors for each job': why are there so few training posts for specialties facing staff shortages?

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By Emma Wilkinson

Frustration and stress mounts as doctors struggle to secure specialty training places despite widespread shortages of senior specialists, leading many to worry if they’ll have a job at all.

For our next generation of doctors, the future looks increasingly uncertain. Competition for specialty training places is increasing year on year and new medics are up against applications from those with one, two or more years’ extra experience. They have debts to pay and trusts facing financial black holes are being told to cut back on rising locum bills.

Yet the NHS is short about 50,000 full-time equivalent doctors compared with the OECD EU average, rotas are unfilled and tensions are high.¹

Dr Shonnelly Novintan, a core surgical trainee in Essex, has many friends who cannot even get an interview for the first stage of speciality training and cannot find other jobs either. “It’s very demoralising,” she says.

As someone who wants to do plastic surgery, in a year or two she will be applying for one of 50 jobs against typically 220 applicants. “Once I’ve got through my core surgical training, I will have 14 to 15 months to put together a portfolio to meet this very high standard,” she explains. “That is really difficult so people take some time out, which you can be penalised for. It’s all very Catch-22.”