NHS hospitals pushing young medics to brink of 'burnout' by relying on them to work extra hours
Exclusive: Dr Mark Porter, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) says the practice should be of 'real concern to patients'
Hospitals are pushing young medics to the brink of “burnout” by relying on them to work
extra hours to plug long-term gaps in ward rotas, leading doctors have warned, after new research showed that the effects of NHS staff shortages are worsening.
extra hours to plug long-term gaps in ward rotas, leading doctors have warned, after new research showed that the effects of NHS staff shortages are worsening.
Dr Mark Porter, chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), said the increasingly common practice of hospital departments requiring junior doctors to work overtime, or filling gaps with expensive agency staff, should be a “real concern to patients” – while the UK’s top emergency doctor cautioned that the NHS had now become used to working with a “skeleton staff” at A&E departments.
The warnings come in the light of a survey of 430 young doctors which suggests that rota gaps are now more commonplace than ever.
READ MORE: GOVERNMENT MUST HIRE MORE FOREIGN DOCTORS
AGENCY DOCTOR EARNED £459,000 COVERING MISSING NHS STAFF
NHS BUDGET CRISIS AS HOSPITALS REBEL AGAINST GOVERNMENT CUTS
NHS COMPETITION LAWS 'STANDING IN WAY OF NECESSARY CHANGE'
Many young doctors surveyed said their own willingness to work extra hours was affecting their work-life balance – with one medic admitting hospitals sometimes resorted to “emotional blackmail” when it comes to persuading staff to work overtime. Despite the burden on doctors, the survey found the vast majority were still happy to work in the NHS.
However, Dr Clifford Mann, chairman of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the flow of British-trained doctors going abroad – as they are unprepared to work under conditions now common in the health service – needed to be stopped because it was wasting hundreds of millions of pounds.
People are tended to near the ambulances parked at the entrance to Glasgow Royal Infirmary
of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the flow of British-trained doctors going abroad – as they are unprepared to work under conditions now common in the health service – needed to be stopped because it was wasting hundreds of millions of pounds.People are tended to near the ambulances parked at the entrance to Glasgow Royal Infirmary
The survey results follow the announcement of a “new deal” for GPs by the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, amid a recruitment and retirement crisis in the profession. Eighty per cent of GP trainees consulted by the survey said there was a shortage of family doctors in their area.
Most junior hospital doctors work on a rota basis. Of those that do, six in 10 told the BMA survey there were or had been long-term gaps in their rota – compared with less than half in last year’s survey. Another 30 per cent said there were often short-term rota gaps.
These gaps were usually filled by expensive locum staff, the survey found, but half of the doctors surveyed said their wards often operated with a staff shortage. The BMA, which has tracked the careers of the 430 doctors since they graduated in 2006, called the findings “alarming”.
in 2006, called the findings “alarming”.
Despite the NHS’s dependence on agency staff – who cost the health service £3.3bn last year – the Government has ordered a crackdown that could lead to even greater pressure on full-time staff.
No comments:
Post a Comment