A major regional New South Wales hospital has lost its accreditation to train medical registrars.
The Western NSW Local Health District (LHD) issued a statement on Friday night saying the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) had withdrawn accreditation for medical registrar training at the Bathurst Base Hospital.
It means four early-career doctors were withdrawn from the roster on Friday and will continue their rotation placements at other hospitals.
"The vast majority of the general physicians at Bathurst provide very, very good supervision of the trainees," Western NSW LHD chief executive, Mark Spittal said.
"There are a few who do not and who have not been able to meet the standards that the college requires and the college accredits departments, rather than individuals, as training sites,” Mr Spittal alleged.
The LHD said in the statement that the RACP in withdrawing accreditation cited supervision and the workload of registrars.
Registrars are doctors with at least three years' experience in a public hospital who are undertaking training in an area of specialty.
Mr Spittal said there were no incidences that directly impacted patient care but some issues arose over the Christmas-New Year period regarding "the quality of supervision".
"And by that I mean availability of senior doctors to respond to concerns that registrars might have had, particularly out of hours ... and to make sure that they're well supported and nurtured," he said.
The RACP was contacted and declined to comment.
The Western LHD says the hospital has sufficient staff rostered in the coming weeks and services to patients won't be affected.
"Every effort is being applied to secure locum or contracted medical officers to ensure there is minimal disruption to services," a spokesperson for the Western LHD said.
"Accreditation for registrars in other disciplines at Bathurst is not affected."
Mr Spittal said the LHD had taken steps to try to resolve some of the issues.
"We have already addressed the workload concerns with some additional non-training registrars,” he said.
In addition, a director of medical services and chief medical officer have been hired and the recruitment process has started to appoint a head of the general medical department.
"We are very, very confident that eventually, through the combination of the influence of those individuals and the work that we're doing on the ground, we will really be able to strengthen the understanding and practice of supervision for medical trainees at Bathurst," Mr Spittal said.
"We're confident we'll get there eventually."
Mr Spittal said the Western LHD would work with the RACP to try to regain accreditation for training registrars at the hospital.
He said the process usually took up to 18 months but he hoped it could be achieved within the next six months.
The ABC is seeking a response to the claims from the general physicians in question.
