London : In a major goof up, up to 1,500 junior doctors in the UK who were offered posts as registrars have had their job offers withdrawn, with authorities blaming human error for the mistake that has left many emotionally and financially stressed.
Last week, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) discovered a significant number of candidates were credited with the wrong score, because of an error transferring data from one computer programme to another – and may therefore have received an incorrect job offer.
The RCP, which oversaw the recruitment, has apologised, blaming human error. It said the process would have to be re-run, the BBC reported.
In a statement, the British Medical Association said it was “appalled”.
“We cannot express how unacceptable we find this situation,” adding: “This has caused extreme anxiety for trainees.”
The junior doctors were alerted to the error on Friday. Fellow doctors described juniors as being in tears. Many were set to uproot their families to take up the job offers, selling homes, putting offers down on houses, moving children to new schools and partners resigning from jobs to find new ones, the report said.
ST3 Recruitment is a nationally co-ordinated system for recruiting doctors across England, Scotland and Wales into a broad range of specialities. Last month, after attending interviews, up to 1,500 junior doctors received job offers in 24 different medical fields.
Each candidate was given a score which determined how likely they were to get their choice of hospital and specialty. On Friday, the RCP wrote to all those who had offers, advising them that the offer was being rescinded.