The Royal College of Ophthalmologists welcomes confirmation that the government will create an additional 4,000 specialty training places in England, following yesterday’s vote by BMA resident doctors to accept the government’s offer on pay and jobs.
Commenting on the news, College President Mohamed Elalfy said:
“Chronic workforce shortages continue to hamper ophthalmology services across the UK, with two thirds of departments not having enough consultants to meet current demand.
“Ophthalmology is one of the fastest growing specialties and will grow further in the next few years. Fundamentally we need more doctors and action must be taken now to ensure we have a sustainable pipeline of ophthalmologists so that our services are better placed to prevent people experiencing avoidable irreversible sight loss.
“It is essential that ophthalmology receives its fair share of this increase. We are calling on government to ensure that ophthalmology receives 100 places from the 4,000 announced today, backed by the resourcing needed to deliver training. As well as helping to address workforce gaps, this will also tackle the extremely high competition ratios facing applicants to ophthalmic specialty training.”