Both have been about applying for jobs, about an attempt to make fundamental changes to the way in which things are done in the NHS. One, is about medical careers and an ill thought out online job application process for junior doctors and the other is an ill thought out reorganisation in primary care trusts which involved more senior managers. While the broad agenda of Modernising Medical Careers will no doubt continue, the application debacle was pulled and not before time. I am no expert on this matter, but I have watched the whole sorry affair unfold in the press, on various news programmes and for the most part on the many medical blogs which have covered it both from a personal point of view and from disbelieving but angry senior doctors who have campaigned for the process to be abandoned. some of the people involved in all this, even if they manage to secure the jobs they want will be suffering from the effects of this for some time.

Commissioning a Patient Led NHS on the other hand has not been well publicised. Who after all cares about the reorganisation of the PCTs, and of the resulting potential job losses to managers. It involved online applications for the most senior people, interviews and then the lucky people starting their new jobs. But it has meant others have spent the last 18 months not knowing what they would be doing after 30th June 2007 and I am sorry to say that some people still don’t know. Some like me have had to start what is almost a new career on a lower pay band (all be it on protected pay for a period of time), others may have to accept the first job that comes along and others may in the end be made redundant. Even those who have jobs (like me) feel damaged by the experience, confidence dented, career in a bit of a strange place. Other colleagues who have no job may well never recover from this whole mess, they have been mucked about, ill advised and told by the union (Royal college of nursing) that there is really nothing that can be done.

I wonder what it is about our professional organisations that means they appear no longer to represent those who pay for them to exist. Ok so I am not your average nurse anymore, but I still pay up my subscription each month as do many other nurses who are now managers. It would be nice to know that they are out there supporting us, but then if the BMA can’t do the right thing for junior doctors I think I am barking up the wrong tree!