The Guardian reports this morning:
Representatives of British doctors, psychiatrists and nursing staff have warned that weakening working time regulations as part of the Brexit process would put the lives of patients at risk.
Changes to the current EU rules on a working week, rest entitlements and paid leave in the UK, with the option of opt out, have been mooted by members of Theresa May's cabinet when discussing their vision of post-Brexit Britain.
But leaders from the British Medical Association (BMA), along with 12 royal colleges and trade unions, have urged Theresa May to stand firm against Brexiters who want to scrap European laws, warning of risks to patient safety.
I would like to add a small personal observation to this. I am married to a doctor. When she was training, which was before the Working Time Directive came into force, there were occasions when she went on shift at 9 AM on Friday, and came off shift at 5 PM on Monday. The shift was, in other words, 80 hours long and covered four days and three nights. She was, of course, provided with a room to stay in at the hospital during the course of the shift but on occassion got less than three hours sleep a night on each night she was there. As she puts it, at the end of that period she was hysterical with tiredness, and quite unable to make effective decisions.
Is that the sort of doctor Johnson and Gove want to recreate?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
“Is that the sort of doctor Johnson and Gove want to recreate?”
Yes, I think so.
Or at the very least it is the sort of doctor they think is appropriate to looking after people who can’t afford to pay for private provision.
As an aside, I worked in the NHS for a few years and talked with staff at various levels of experience and function – from cleaners to medics and admin staff. Smoking is a great social leveller 🙂
I was appalled to discover nursing shift patterns sometimes involved very short overnight breaks which would have made any sort of normal life, let alone family life virtually impossible. The only Trade Union I was ever a member of was Equity and the rules there stipulate an overnight break of 12 hours. (and some other very humane conditions particularly suited to casualised workers) Any infringement of that sacrosanct norm put staff onto overtime rates which they stayed on until such time as the overnight break could be taken. The overnight break was not often breached in my experience.
You will not be surprised or delighted to hear that those conditions have been greatly watered down in the latest agreement with theatre producers (I don’t know if the same is true of TV or film)…
You’re not wrong, Ian.
I am neither surprised nor delighted.
Working as Internal Auditor inside of the Hospital by 24 hour by day on week with a Room inside of the Hospital to Prevent irregularities and also take rotativo inventory inside of supply department or Registration as an entry inside the Hospital service is required in mayority of case of the Biggest Insurance Companies that usually denied a Health Insurance or Health service and goes to complain department. In mayority of cases with UCI, Burns Rooms, Criticals Health Conditions as an Accidents Cars or Risk Pregnancy , Cancer, Ceitical kindness Transplant or Hart, eyed or any organs.
Pandemics populations .
I was working for BR when the working time directive was introduced. This followed hard on the heels of the 1988 Clapham Junction rail crash. Although not in a Safety Critical position at the time , I had worked for thirteen weeks in that summer from 0600 in the morning until 2000 in the evening and had worked every ‘rest day’ during that time. this was due to staff shortage but of course the public still needed to travel. A lot of grumbling about loss of overtime took place but rosters were re-jigged to accommodate the new rules and everybody worked on. The poor tech pilloried for the crash had worked excessive hours for god knows how long. The staff shortage was due to government restriction on recruitment. One guess who was in Government at the time
I keep going back to your quote about classical music in regard to trying to make something like primary care as efficient as possible. I live with a GP, she spent a year doing A+E doctoring so has only got back into being a ‘normal’ GP. As a result they are slowly reacclimatising her to the 10 minute allocated slots per patient. She starts at 20 minutes, then she goes on to 15, and finally 10. She’s finding it tough and I often walk into the kitchen to find her either trying to put the kettle in the fridge thinking its milk or staring vacantly at the cooker trying to figure out what each knob does and which one she needs to turn. She calls this decision fatigue. I can only imagine how exhausting it can all be. These people are our best and brightest and we can’t expect to squeeze anymore out of them without something giving, they are after all, human. My partner is a ICU nurse and she says she barely has time to have a break and often works extra hours (usually unpaid), so I can only assume its the same case for anyone working in the NHS. Patients lives are already at risk, I fear that loosening of the working time directive would be the straw which broke the camels back.
The NHS pretty much broke my wife’s health
She is retired on those grounds now
The NHS is only functioning because of the dedication and sacrifices of the people working for it. Its heart breaking seeing them being broken.
Teaching contributed to my well-being going out of the window-but at least I didn’t have responsibility for the health/life/death of my charges (well, not generally!).
I’ve met many doctors in recent years that have shifted to part-time, mainly to stop themselves going under. It is a shocking and unbelievable disgrace that a profession dedicated to the health and well-being of others is in this position.
There is an inexplicable ‘macho’ tradition in medicine which makes trainees push themselves to their limits, so I often wonder weather this culture is part of the problem -I understand that people have to be trained to respond quickly to emergence but continually running the gauntlet of extreme fatigue and mental demand is an utter absurdity.
My experience in teaching (often doing 10 hour days) with all sorts of stress coming at you whilst Governments simultaneously pull the rug from under you at least gives me a clue to what it might be like for a doctor-but only a clue.
The neo-libs are good at creating stressed and tired populaces, it serves their purposes, the more so in the case of nationalised services where they can claim it needs privatising for ‘efficiency’ (my posterior).
Glib and useless Tory politicians should be treated the way this doctor treated the glib and feckless Cameron/Clegg and Lansley as they entered a ward with sleeves rolled up to make them look like they were doing a day’s work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIQWaBbURlY
If someone like Gove had come into my classroom when I was a teacher -I’d probably be still serving a prison sentence!
I’m glad he didn’t show then!
Simon Cohen says:
December 21 2017 at 12:10 pm
“……but at least I didn’t have responsibility for the health/life/death of my charges ….”
I bet there were times you wish ……
No, let’s not go there.
Sorry. This is where the very small violin comes out. If we are to believe doctors, this sort of thing had been going on since they gave up on leeches as a main proscriptive treatment. So all the senior doctors at the top of the pecking order have been through it.
Over here, in the private sector, when things get busy we all pitch in. The little concern I’m involved with, the amount of dreamtime she was getting would have been what I would have been dreaming about if I’d had her dreamtime, last summer. But shit needed doing & organising. And I’m not even under the slightest obligation to do it. But… that’s what we do, don’t we?
She hasn’t got a problem with politicians. She’s got a problem with her profession. That doctors who’ve completed their training don’t feel an obligation to leave their golf courses, comfy sofas or duvets when needs call. Despite having been through it themselves. In other words, doctors aren’t particularly professional.
Very politely, you have not the slightest idea of what you’re talking about
But, I can offer a diagnosis: you are full of shit
I work in the NHS in a front-line clinical position, and I can corroborate your diagnosis.
Seconded
You’re denying that trainee doctors had been complaining about the hours they were expected to work for most of the past century? There’s even been comedy films made about it.
Actually they don’t any more
Because they’re not abused any more
They’re underpaid
But they don’t do 80 hour shifts now
I think you really need to inform your self on the things you talk about
I think my housemate (she’s a hard working doctor) would appreciate 5 minutes alone in a room with you. With greatest respect.
“When things get busy we all pitch in.” So, by your own words, you have no idea what it’s like to work in an environment where things are not just permanently busy, but positively febrile. I’ve worked in the private and public sector, and my experience is that there isn’t even a close comparison between the pressure of work considered acceptable.
I agree with you Iam
For Simon Cohen (Happy Christmas):
http://www.fascinatingaida.co.uk%2Fvideos%2Fview%2Fofsted_song
My partner has just retired from teaching to look after her mother who has vascular dementia. She is much happier and fulfilled now. She misses the kids and the staff but the work load was horrendous – she was meant to work 2.5 days per week but regularly did more than that – especially at home. They reckon that most teachers have lost £5K per year since 2010? Scandalous.
PSR,
Being an ex-teacher myself I recognise your comments and their validity.
As for the future generations; on Monday night I was talking to my neice (a nurse) before the Everton/Swansea game. The previous day she had alone been responsible for thirteen patients in the respiratory ward of a local hospital. Breaks were scheduled but not taken due to lack of cover. The shift lasted fourteen hours!
On Wednesday when questioned re The NHS May replied with statistics, as ever.
Neither I or my brother in law(her dad) believe that my neice is a statistic, but I am beginning to think that perhaps she does or soon will do.
Sad, very sad.