Jeremy Hunt has recently revealed proposals for doctors in NHS hospitals to cover seven day weeks which includes working weekends. According to evidence, the current Monday- Friday working culture of doctors within the NHS means that a patient is 16% more likely to die if admitted on a Sunday and 6,000 avoidable and unnecessary deaths are being caused a year.
Although these statistics are worrying for patients and something must be done to lower the number of avoidable deaths at weekend, it may be that a patient admitted to hospital at a weekend is linked to a higher chance of death due to people engaging in more dangerous activities and sports at weekends. It is still unclear what the cause of this link is and it may or may not be down to a lack of experienced doctors during the weekend period.
The response from the British Medical Association (BMA) is that the idea of doctors working 7 days a week is “too simplistic”. Medicine is not a 9-5 job and patients should receive the care equivalent to that received during the week. It is far too easy to state that there are more doctors needed in NHS hospitals at weekends and a whole team and network of support is needed to aid doctors during the weekend.
The EU Working Time Directive provides that doctors must work safe hours. If they work longer, patients’ lives may potentially be put at risk and the quality of care given to patients should never be compromised. The BMA argue that there are not enough doctors to be able to implement these proposals and it takes a very long time to train them to the appropriate level. Does this mean there will be inadequate care provided by tired or untrained doctors working long and unsafe hours? There is also a concern that improving the provision of doctors at weekends may result in a reduction in services during the week – are the proposals simply shifting the problems on a weekend day to a week day? With a £22 billion deficit to contend with, concerns have also been raised by the medical profession as to how the NHS could afford to implement a seven day a week service.
Jeremey Hunt has stated that if the government cannot negotiate with the BMA, the proposals will be imposed. This will inevitably result in doctors potentially retiring from the profession when moral in NHS hospitals is already said to be low. Recent news articles are very scary for patients reading the very simplistic headlines and it must be reiterated that doctors are working far more than they have in the past.
Although it has been criticised as being unworkable and will take a lot of extra funding, it is hoped that a change in working patterns of NHS doctors will lower the risk of fatalities at weekends and ensure that the standard of care and treatment that patients receive at weekends is improved to match that of weekdays. Our clinical negligence legal professionals consider that implementing a seven day week working environment for NHS doctors, if implemented appropriately, could be a positive move forward which will be in the best interests of patients.
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