The new scheme for selecting doctors for specialist training lurched closer towards chaos yesterday when a panel of consultants refused to conduct job interviews on the ground that they were unfair.

The walkout came as the royal colleges issued a joint statement urging the Government to conduct an immediate review of the new selection programme, which contained “serious weaknesses”. The statement gave warning of a “crisis of confidence” in the process.

The revolt happened in Birmingham where a panel of ten consultants, a miltary doctor and a lay chairwoman had gathered to interview 82 candidates for 17 posts in general surgery in the Midlands.

Andy Garnham, a surgeon in Wolverhampton and a member of the panel, said that the consultants were unhappy about the way that the shortlist had been prepared from the original 650 applicants. “The whole system had serious flaws,” he said. “No long list had been done and there were people on the shortlist who were ineligible, whose qualifications had not been checked or whose immigration status was in doubt.

“We didn’t think the procedure was acceptable. We discussed it for two and a half hours before deciding we couldn’t go ahead.

“This is the last selection procedure doctors go through before they are qualified to become consultants, so it is vital to get it right. Professionally, we didn’t think it was fair to patients or to the candidates to be part of a faulty system.”

All ten consultants on the panel voted to suspend the selection.

In London, the leaders of the 16 medical royal colleges met and issued a statement expressing dismay at the Medical Training Application Service. “We see a crisis of confidence in this critical element of the new system,” the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said.

Two problems have emerged: whether there are sufficient training posts available for junior doctors; and whether the system for selecting candidates for those posts is fair.

The Government has repeatedly claimed that there will be enough posts, ridiculing warnings from the British Medical Association. But the introduction of the new system, combined with the winding-up of the old post of senior house officer, has caused a crush of applicants this year.

These include people “who are among the brightest and most able of their generation”, the academy said.

Mr Garnham added: “The biggest agony was letting down the 82 young doctors who had come here with the expectation that they would be interviewed. I spoke to one lady who had come all the way from New Zealand. But we felt that the interviews would be a sham, so we pulled out.”

Junior doctors plan to take to the streets on March 17 to protest about the whole selection process.

It has also pointed out problems with the system, including website crashes, underqualified people shortlisting candidates and junior doctors being given the wrong information.

Jo Hillborne, chairman of the BMA junior doctors committee, said that doctors on interviewing panels had a duty to ensure that the system was fair. “If not, they can’t in all conscience go ahead,” she said.

She called for the process to be suspended and for a rapid review to see whether the system could be fixed or should be replaced. She said: “There are five months until doctors have to take up training posts. That’s a reasonable amount of time.”

Many junior doctors blame the royal colleges, traditionally the guardians of postgraduate medical training, for taking their eye off the ball and allowing the new system to be dominated by the Department of Health under the title Modernising Medical Careers.

Yesterday’s volte-face by the academy may be met with some cynicism as a result.

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