I think its a horrible idea based on flawed logic.
As far as I can tell the main reason its been changed is because CTs were saying they didn't feel ready to be the med reg. Well duh - CMT is absolutely awful - no different to F2 whatsoever, except busier - and being the med reg is a scary thing. Its good they want to improve it, and to be fair they are talking about having more e.g. clinic time, a more robust ARCP etc.
But I am so glad I am missing this:
1) Lets start with the obvious - the extra year. No one joints CMT/IMT to be a gen med SHO. People join to become medical specialists, and an extra year of rotating around as an anonymous med SHO... that's a huge blow to every trainee in the country.
Two years of restructured, actually existent training would be entirely adequate. What happened to acting up during CT2?
2) I assume it will be paid at CT level and not ST3 level too?
3) Ultimately we're meant to be training as specialist consultants right? Easy to forget at times. Perhaps less so in some specialities where much of the consultant job is gen med anyway, but things like Dermatology? Oncology? Neurology? They now need to achieve all the same specialist knowledge in a year less?! What provision is there to achieve that?!
4) Based on current I have zero faith they can deliver what they promise in terms of e.g. clinics. We have to absolutely fight tooth and nail for current requirements, with many resorting to coming in on annual leave. The departments just do not give a **** - we probably aren't going to end up doing their speciality, after all.
When we do get allocated "clinics", they can be a joke e.g. supervising exercise ECG testing, or writing discharge letters for people having elective endoscopies (two real examples). And lets not get started on procedural sign offs.
40% of CMTs already require extra time due to this constant battle, and I've seen multiple examples of people being signed off despite not actually meeting the minimum requirements. What incentives for trusts are going to make IMT any different, exactly?
This is just going to be a year more of the same, and because of that we're going to have even more dissatisfied trainees and ultimately worse consultants.