What will the term ‘transitional training grade’ mean? Will the 'transitional training' be accepted as the same as the training given in a full bloodied training post? Will there be 14000 of them? If not, the the widespread use of the acronym MMC within the profession - Mass Medical Cull - will remain just as applicable for some as ever. Short term band aid remedies simply will not do, the whole system should be scrapped and replaced with a thought-through solution as soon as possible. Meantime some immediate thought to the excellent ideas put forward by Prof Morris Brown et al regarding the subject would not go amiss.

David L. Cox, Loggerheads, UK

I strongly disagree with the caption of Junior doctors accept practical compromise. I am a junior doctor affected by the MTAS and a member of the BMA as well. The junior doctor representatives of the BMA may have accepted the proposal by the government but a vast m,ajority of the junior doctors have not. They are making us scapegoats and experimental rats in this system which will see the end of doctors decision making powers in the NHS.

Kuldeep Singh, Edgware, united kingdom

Living in the real world (something most NHS employees don't) the simple truth is that if you have enough people carrying out a particular specialist role then those remaining have to go and do something else. Or I suppose you could employ them all in the one or two roles they will condescend to do and then complain that there are huge shortages in all the other specialist areas (now that does sound like the NHS).

Stephen, London, UK

I don not know any junior doctors who agree with this proposal. It is not just juniors either - Prof M Brown and 29 others recently signed a letter in protest, printed in the Times. I would like to read the minutes of the review panel's meetings and also know what pressure and incentives have been put on and offered to ensure that our "representatives" agree to this in blatant opposition to grass roots opinion.

A Townshend, Nottingham,

How many junior doctors did the writer of this article interview before coming to the conclusion that "Junior doctors accept 'practical' compromise? Or did he just ask the Junior Doctors Committee of the BMA? Sadly that august body is not representative of the vast majority of junior doctors who are their members. The original MMC/MTAS programme was predicted to fail by those inside and out the medical profession. The government appointed "independent" review members have behaved as government lapdogs, and not very efficient ones at that, and they should be ashamed of themselves. I presume that is why two of them have already resigned.
Please correct the reporting because junior doctors do not accept this compromise.
Thank you

Levans, Southport,

Agree, this hugely flawed process has not been agreed by Junior Doctors or the majority of seniors, who are very much opposed to it. Already both the National Director and the National Clinical Advisor of Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) have now resigned from the review group because they could not go along with the fudges that have emanated from it. This Review Board was supposed to be "Independent" and yet the same people who were responsible for the MMC/MTAS fiasco were also on the review panel.
This new system will mean the destruction of the best training method in the world with consultants answerable to the Department of Health, not their patients or teams. The public should be aware of what is happening here as it still means cuts of thousands of our doctors, some of whom are already heading for Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

B Green, Liv erpool,

HMG has (for its own propagandist purposes) accepted that the BMA and the colleges "represent" the junior doctors, and indeed the vociferous seniors, the majority of which actually vehemently oppose this ridiculous dumbing down of medical training, and abhor the flawed system of shortlisting. The so called leaders of our profession need to develop some cojones and start fighting rather than rolling over .

Declaration of interest:: I have emigrated to escape the madness of the current NHS.

Consultant Urological Surgeon
New Zealand

David Tulloch, Invercargill, NZ

How can the Government continue to push through this "fatally flawed" application system. Just yesterday 23 eminent doctors called for MTAS to be abandoned altogether. They urged an immediate return to a regionally based selection system led by the same expert doctors as will be responsible for the specialist training”. Does the DH listen to any professionals who actually know what they are talking about?

Goodbye NHS, good health care and many dedicated young doctors.

Paula McGahey, Newtownards, Northern Ireland