Junior doctors give Sunderland and South Tyneside health trust top rating

Every year junior doctors are asked to give feedback about their postgraduate medical training in the NHS across a range of important indicators.

These include the level of clinical and educational supervision received and whether junior doctors feel supported, as well as feedback about the environments in which they work.

The General Medical Council (GMC) results for 2018 reveal that in Sunderland, junior doctor trainees voted their experiences highly with the trust ranked fifth in the region and in the top 30% of all NHS organisations nationally.

The trust said the results show that across the South Tyneside and Sunderland Healthcare Group, despite the daily challenges and pressures being faced, local hospitals continue to offer some of the very best quality of medical training anywhere in the NHS.

The trust also performed well in the GMC’s annual “trainer” survey, being one of only a handful nationally to achieve a green flag for overall performance.

Commenting on the results, Ken Bremner, chief executive of South Tyneside and City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trusts, said: “These results are fantastic news and testament to the hard work of our highly committed medical education teams in both trusts to support our future workforce.

“Given the immense challenges that we face across our workforce, it is vital that we provide a high quality training experience for junior doctor trainees who are coming into the NHS and starting their careers with us.”

“This latest positive feedback demonstrates the high quality of training and support that we offer to enable junior doctors to deliver outstanding patient care.

“As we look to the future and our ambition to become one trust, we want to build on these successes and our strong reputation for high quality education and training to attract more new graduates and junior doctor trainees to stay with us and build their long-term careers in South Tyneside and Sunderland.”

The GMC’s annual national surveys give trainee doctors and trainers the opportunity to give their views to ensure that doctors in training receive high quality training in a safe and effective clinical environment and that trainers are well supported in their role.