'Golden hellos' fail to attract medics to the military life

The initiative’s failure has led to the British Medical Association raising serious questions over the ability of Britain’s under-strength medical corps to cope with casualties should war be declared on Iraq.

The campaign was launched by government minister Lewis Moonie three months ago.

The 50,000 incentives were highlighted by an expensive advertising campaign in medical newspapers and magazines. The government also promised to increase the pay for military doctors by up to 15,000 to match - and in some cases exceed - the pay offered by the National Health Service.

But the Ministry of Defence has revealed that, so far, not one doctor has been tempted to take the financial incentive by signing on for five years’ service in the Defence Medical Services.

This leaves the Defence Medical Services with just three consultants in accident and emergency, 18 general surgeons, 23 anaesthetists, and 11 orthopaedic surgeons just weeks before the possible start of a conflict with Iraq.

Dr John Ferguson, the chairman of the British Medical Association’s Armed Forces Committee, said he was not surprised at the recruitment failure. "The incentive works out at around 6,000 a year after tax and experienced consultants will look at that and say it isn’t worth the disruption to their lives," he said.

The average Scottish GP earns around 55,000, with consultants on 55,000-60,000. Consultants who take on private work earn far more.

Ferguson blamed chronic underinvestment in the Defence Medical Services for making the role unattractive. "It has been cut to the bone and there is such demand for the skills of military doctors that they can be whipped away at a moment’s notice for months at a time," he said. "In comparison, the NHS is a very stable place to work, and that stability helps you have a home life. The idea that golden hellos were going to compensate for that stability was questionable."

Ferguson called for an improvement to the incentive, to military medical salaries and pension arrangements and better welfare provision, as the route to attracting experienced staff.

The DMS is meant to have enough staff to provide 13 field hospitals. Instead, it only has four 200-bed field hospitals it can deploy. Two are being sent to the Gulf, using full-time military medics, but deploying the remaining two will involve some reservists.

Ferguson said the typical casualty rate in a war was 10% of all soldiers involved - meaning that at least 2,600 soldiers will need treatment, and yet Britain’s two field hospitals will have only 400 beds.

He added: "The under-recruiting means if the situation in Iraq becomes a war, they will need to deploy all four of our field hospitals, and I can’t see how they can do that, given the parlous state of the DMS, without mobilising their reservists, which is essentially robbing Peter, in the form of the NHS, to pay Paul."

The DMS is short of 800 nurses, with its total number of medics only 6,500 - 23% down on its operational requirement of 8,400. It needs 415 more GPs, on top of the 195 GPs it already has.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said: "It is a little early to describe the scheme as a failure, given it was launched only a short time ago."