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Rules on doctors’ hours ‘will put hospital patients at risk’
Anna Davis23.01.09
PATIENTS' lives will be put at risk by new rules restricting doctors' working hours, MPs were warned today.
Hospitals will be forced to close units and lives will be endangered when new European working time laws are introduced, the country's top surgeon said.
The NHS does not have enough doctors to enable the new laws to work, and young medics will miss out on vital training when they are introduced, said John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons.
The EU working time directive will restrict the number of hours surgeons and other doctors can work to 48 hours a week. This will cut the number of hours doctors can be on call and force them to do tiring night shifts instead, Mr Black said.
The rules would also increase the number of times doctors hand over to a new team, increasing risk to patients.
Speaking to a committee of MPs Mr Black said: “This is the biggest threat to patient safety and the delivery of services for a long time.
“The number of people needed to supply 24-hour cover and the number of handovers would increase. Finding the number of doctors to keep wards open is impossible — the people are not there to do it.
“Many hospital units will not be able to provide services and will have to close. Units will say, we have not got the doctors to be on call tonight.'
“This will lead to service reconfiguration that hasn't been planned.”
Mr Black called for a 65-hour maximum on-call working week. He said: “The thing about the health service is that the working load is very variable.
“Lots of time we are on call there is not a lot happening. Surgeons don't work continuously. There are always opportunities for breaks.”
He said longer hours on call are less tiring and stressful than a system that makes doctors work night shifts.
“These rules are designed to protect the health of workers, not patients,” said Mr Black. “They were not designed to apply to professional people with very irregular working hours. We are not being exploited. Our trainees all tell us their lives would be better and they would be less tired if they apparently worked more hours.
“People are also concerned about the lowered intensity of their training.”
A survey of trainee surgeons published today shows that 80 per cent of trainees would like to opt out of the European Working Time Regulation.
Information from the Association of Surgeons in Training also found that NHS Trusts routinely re-employ their own trainee surgeons out of hours as “internal locums” to cover gaps in shifts.
Association president Ben Cresswell called for an opt-out of the European legislation. He said: “The increased tendency to shift working that we have seen over the past few years has been driven entirely by a desire to reduce hours.
“That desire has not come from the profession, neither from trainees nor from consultants, and the hours reduction has been universally damaging due to significant fragmentation of the surgical team and a loss of continuity of care.”
teenager dies after being sent home with painkillers'
A teenager died from a brain infection after doctors repeatedly turned him away from hospital with just painkillers.
Steven Deans, 17, suffered agonising headaches but his condition was missed by a succession of A&E doctors at Mayday Hospital in Thornton Heath. The hospital has confirmed it has launched an investigation.
His mother, Marcia Deans, of Addiscombe, today vowed to sue Mayday for “negligence”. She claims he took himself to the hospital with crippling headaches several times before he died on 13 December but each time he was seen by A&E staff he was sent home and told to take paracetamol.
A post-mortem concluded he died after an abscess in the brain developed into an infection.
Reader views (6)
It is time for the N H S( goverment) to wake up, Drs and other keyworkerse,are working to the limit With goverments target ,and the increase of Drs workloads ,It is ok for Consultants saying patient suffer maybe they should roll up their sleeps to help out
- Raymond Temple, London Uk
we manufacture High Definition HDX Video Conferencing systems, which attach directly to PACS, CT, MRI etc, etc - and the NHS are installing them all over the UK to enable Consultants to work remotely, and see lots of patients in one place - this is really helping maximise their useful time,and reducing their travel costs dramtically!
- Gary, amersham
The EU should keep it's nose out. We elect political parties on the basis of their politics to govern our country. We do not want unelected and unaccountable socialists dictating our lives.
On that note where is our election unelected Brown?
- Frank, Home Counties, England
The medical profession should have something like a tacograph (sp!) to ensure they have due breaks.
- Tony Islander, Herts
If other EU countries can do it, why not the UK? Instead of complaining about it, NHS should have tried to work out a new system that works, maybe even model it off the French 35 working hours per week model (Yes, 35hrs!).
And why will working less hours a week, result in working more "tiring" night shifts? I thought the whole idea of working less hours is to have more time off to recover.
- Tom K, London
the NHS had enough warning - should have got their corperate fingers out!!!
- John Lowe, london
