LONDON - Pressure increased on Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt with the Conservatives demanding her resignation following the fiasco over the online recruitment system that was put in place for junior doctors.
Even as Hewitt tried to explain to the House of Commons that the recruitment system was scrapped following concerns expressed by junior doctors, legal documents reveal that the system was in fact unable to select the best available candidate.
Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley asked Ms Hewitt not to shirk away from the responsibility. "Even at this late stage, they do not know where they will be working on August 1. It may be anywhere from Cromer to St Albans. You can't shirk responsibility in this. You have to take responsibility for it. Will you now understand that the only way to do that is to resign", he said.
The documents released by the Department of Health say that the software has a fundamental flaw through which it is unable to select the best candidate for the job and Hewitt is in hot water for not disclosing it to the Commons. Nicholas Greenfield, the Department of Health's director of workforce, submitted the documents to the High Court on Wednesday, in which it has being clearly specified that the software was a "work in progress".
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, has asked Hewitt to come clean on the matter and wants her to submit her resignation. "I'm amazed that on top of everything else that has happened, she failed to mentioned the highly embarrassing fact that the system could not deliver what was needed", Lamb added.
