Organizatio & HR management

MBA607 – Organisations & HRM

Make up Assignment

Task: Read the short case and answer all 4 questions

MMC: Money down the drain or failed HRM?

‘Modernising Medical Careers’ (MMC) is an online programme for postgraduate medical

training introduced in the UK from 2005 onwards. IT was devised and implemented by a

think tank at the central policy offices of the National Health Service (NHS). For many years

there have been concerns about the UK medical workforce, in particular the postgraduate

medical training system. The most prominent of these centred on the poor training and

indifferent career prospects experienced by some doctors at Senior House Officer (SHO)

level and by many of those in Staff Grade and Associate Specialist (SAS) posts (online at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmhealth/25/25i.pdf).

Therefore, the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) programme of work was established in

2003to address these difficulties. In this line, MMC was intended to ‘improve patient care by

improving medical education with a transparent and efficient career path for doctors’.

More specifically, ‘Modernising Medical Careers’ is an online lob application system for

junior doctors. Rather than writing to hospitals for their first job appointment, junior doctors

fill in a website based questionnaire and application form. Also, completion of the

questionnaire and application form gives a point score; and from this decisions are made

anonymously by a centrally based HR and jobs offers system.

The system, however, has been dogged by criticism within and outside the medical

profession. As it quickly became apparent that the database itself was not secure, this has led

to controversy and allegations made by students that their applications had been tampered

with or altered. There was no guarantee either of the integrity of the form completion process

and in many cases, forms that had been fully filled in were incomplete when they were

downloaded by prospective employers. Also, the application process has had technical

problems and was criticised over the weighting and marking of the applications, with one

London training school calling it "unfair and ineffective" in resigning from the process.

Also, the House of Commons Health Select Committee published a report into the

Government's handling of the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) reforms on 8 May 2008.

The report was highly critical of the way in which the reforms were managed, highlighting

failings in leadership, governance and policy development. The inquiry exposed serious

problems with the management of MMC reforms, and particularly the introduction of the

Medical Training application Service (MTAS). The Committee criticised the Chief Medical

Officer (CMO) for a lack of leadership and the medical profession for the lack of a coherent

voice. MPs also found co-ordination between the Department of Health (DH) and the Home

Office 'inadequate' in handling attempts to restrict medical migration.

To the worst, as it was perceived sufficiently poorly within the medical profession, its

implementation was ultimately boycotted by senior doctors around the UK.

Answer all 4 Questions

1) Search the MMC in the internet and provide a brief description of its HRM strategy

and practices.

(Weighting: 25%)

(Wordage: 1000)

2) What factors and practices do you believe are important in explaining the failure of

MMC from a Human Resource Management Perspective?

(Weighting: 25%)

(Wordage: 1000)

3) What HRM strategies would you recommend for this organization? Why have you

chosen them?

(Weighting: 25%)

(Wordage: 1000)

4) What HRM policies and practices would you suggest towards improving the function

and publicity of MMC?

(Weighting: 25%)

(Wordage: 1000)

(Total Weighting: 100%)

(Total Wordage: 1000)

Please REFERENCE all sources using the Harvard Referencing System

The deadline for this report is: Check your email.

Return your completed reports to your module tutor (Dr. Leonidas Efthymiou) via

email