Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the concerns expressed by the British Medical Association in their parliamentary briefing of 12 January about under staffing of the Defence Medical Services; and what assessment they have made of the impact of under staffing on the morale, motivation and retention of army doctors.
Answered on
26 January 2017
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises that there are manning challenges regarding Armed Forces Medical Officers (MOs). While we are able to meet our current commitments both on operations and in the delivery of primary healthcare, we recognise more needs to be done. We welcome the British Medical Association's support in this regard.
The Surgeon General commissions an annual Continuous Attitude Survey (CAS) for all members of the Defence Medical Services. Whilst the 2016 CAS results showed that under-staffing is an issue for some cadres, they also revealed that morale has increased amongst MOs compared to 2015.
Concerning retention, we monitor closely the voluntary outflow of Regular MOs, with trends reported to the Surgeon General. To improve retention, in 2016 we piloted a Less Than Full Time Training programme for MOs under speciality training. This has now migrated to an Armed Forces wide scheme for which MOs at any stage of career will be eligible. The MOD is also looking at ways to incentivise recruitment of fully accredited General Medical Practitioners and Consultants in shortfall cadres.