Three out of five young doctors on hospital wards and in GP surgeries are women, figures show
Three out of five young doctors on hospital wards and in GP surgeries are women.
They made up 61 per cent of doctors under 30 last year and 46 per cent of those aged 30 to 50.
Figures show men remain dominant in the oldest age group, with women comprising less than a third of doctors over 50.
But the numbers suggest the medical takeover by women is slowing.
In 2012, 55 per cent of medical students were female, compared with 61 per cent in 2003 and 57 per cent in 2007.
Overall, almost half of GPs are women, or some 46 per cent, according to the General Medical Council.
Previous reports have found hospitals are facing staff shortages as a result of junior doctors becoming pregnant as soon as they receive their first secure job.
The new figures are likely to fuel fears about the impact of increasing numbers of female doctors on struggling hospital wards.
In 2010, the council urged the Government to make better long-term plans so that departments were not left struggling when several female doctors took maternity leave at once, or went part-time after starting a family.
And this year in a parliamentary debate former health minister Anna Soubry highlighted the ‘huge burden’ of women who received expensive medical training but went part-time later after having children.
In 2010 it was also reported that the NHS as a whole faced a chronic shortage of women in senior positions, with fewer than 30 per cent of consultant posts in the health service held by women. Women doctors also earned on average 18 per cent less than male doctors.
The latest figures emerged as the GMC admitted the number of complaints about doctors has doubled in five years, while the number of doctors willing to speak up about the poor standards of other medics has also shot up. In 2012, the GMC received 8,109 complaints – more than 22 a day – a 24 per cent increase from 2011 and a 104 per cent increase from 2007, when there were 3,982.
Most complaints about doctors come from patients, their relatives and friends. The rest come from doctors’ employers or individual doctors about colleagues’ fitness to practise. These complaints were up from 749 in 2011 to 835 last year.
Overall, 54 per cent of complaints were about clinical care or both clinical care and communication with patients. Two in five complaints from individual doctors were about issues such as a conflict of interest or criminal convictions held by colleagues.
Figures show men remain dominant in the oldest age group, with women comprising less than a third of doctors over 50
GPs were more likely to be complained about than other doctors.
Male doctors were twice as likely to attract complaints, and 22 per cent of male GPs received a complaint compared to 11 per cent of female GPs between 2007 and 2012.
The proportion of doctors aged over 50 who received a complaint was higher than for doctors aged 30 to 50. This was particularly true of GPs, the State of Medical Education and Practice report showed.
The GMC, which regulates around 250,000 doctors in the UK, said the overall number of complaints is very small when the quantity of interactions between doctors and patients is taken into account.
It said higher patient expectations and greater willingness of other doctors to raise concerns were behind the rise.
It said higher patient expectations and greater willingness of other doctors to raise concerns were behind the rise.
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