Ring-fencing the doctor training budget

JuniordoctorsThe Telegraph reports a suggestion that the training of doctors should be split off from the NHS:

"Billions of pounds for junior doctors' training should be taken out of the NHS and given to a new medical education body, an independent inquiry will conclude.


The inquiry into the junior doctor recruitment crisis will recommend moving at least £2.6 billion to a body called NHS Medical Education for England that would oversee training and fund courses, study leave and a proportion of juniors' salaries."

If healthcare in Britain were delivered by a multitude of competing providers then it might work well to have another set of organisations responsible for assisting in the education of doctors.  You could have a genuine labour market for doctors just as we do for other professions.

 

However, within the structure of the NHS as it stands separating the educating of doctors from the single organisation responsible for the overwhelming majority of their employment will just weaken the already fragile links between supply and demand for doctors' labour.  Such a measure would exacerbate the all to common problem of an over or under supply of doctors.

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