The government and the chief medical officer have been publicly rebuked by MPs for a failure of leadership during the debacle over doctors' training.

In a scathing report, the Commons health committee said the medical profession's confidence in Sir Liam Donaldson was "seriously damaged" as a result of last year's recruitment fiasco.

The committee also criticised the Department of Health more generally for its "inept" project management of the introduction of the new system for allocating training places, known as Modernising Medical Careers (MMC).

And the cross-party group of MPs spoke critically of professional bodies for failing to provide leadership during the crisis, which saw thousands of doctors take part in protests.

The committee expressed doubt that the new MMC programme board would be able to sort out last year's problems, which left 32,000 doctors competing for 23,000 posts.

An online application system had to be abandoned after some of the best qualified junior doctors failed even to get job interviews.

'Inadequate'

MPs said project management had been "poor" and singled out Sir Liam over his failure to accept responsibility for the ensuing problems, even though he was the main architect of the changes.

"The leadership shown by the Department of Health during this period was totally inadequate," the report said.

"Despite being the architect of the reforms, the chief medical officer (CMO) chose not to take on a clear leadership role and thus did not accept overall responsibility for the 2007 crisis.

"The confidence of the medical profession in the current CMO has been seriously damaged by MMC."

The committee complained that the governance systems for MMC were "far too complicated", roles and responsibilities were "ill-defined" while the lines of accountability were "irrational and blurred".

"Much of the key planning for the 2007 changes took place in a mad scramble at the end of 2006," it said.

'Appalling'

"Project management decisions took little account of the needs and concerns of applicants themselves and communication with junior doctors was appalling."

The committee acknowledged that the government had put in place changes since last year - including the establishment of a new MMC programme board - but questioned whether they went far enough.

"The constitution, independence and leadership of the MMC programme board remain too vague to provide assurance that it can develop and implement effective solutions to the challenges identified in this report," it said.

While the committee said that consultation by the department with the medical profession had been "ineffective", it was also highly critically of the medical profession’s leaders.

It described them as "divided by factional interests and unable to speak with a coherent voice".

"The weak and tokenistic nature of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges was exposed by the MMC crisis," the report added.

The Department of Health said it would "carefully" consider the committee's report.

"We understand and have apologised for the problems that the 2007 recruitment process created," a spokesman said.

Advice

"Since then we have created the MMC programme board, over half of which are representatives of the medical profession and junior doctors, to advise ministers on junior doctors' training and recruitment.

"Every single recommendation of that board has been accepted and implemented by ministers."

The DoH insisted that Sir Liam should not be held personally responsible for the problems with MMC which were "widespread" among a number of organisations.

"The chief medical officer saw and understood the need to reform the way junior doctors were trained. This was something which the medical profession almost completely agreed with," a spokesman said.

"That, as this report makes clear, was the right thing to do. However, the problems created in trying to implement those reforms were for reasons that he had little, if any control over, or responsibility for."