Doctors Urged To Consider Seven-Day Working

Senior doctors are being urged to support seven-day working by NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh.

The shift to seven-day working for consultants is essential if standards are to be raised, according to Keogh, who claims there is hard evidence that patients are more likely to die if they are admitted over a weekend.

However, the chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, Paul Flynn, rejects the idea, asking who will pay for senior doctors to be on the wards seven days a week.’

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Koegh says:

"We must ask why, in many hospitals, expensive diagnostic machines and pathology laboratories are underused, operating theatres lie fallow and clinics remain empty. Yet, access to specialist care is dogged by waiting lists, and general practitioners and patients must wait for diagnostic results."

"Imagine finding yourself in need of a blood test result, a diagnostic test, or specialist advice but having to wait an additional two days – for what reason? Intuitively many of us find this frustrating and unacceptable. Imagine, also, a young woman who finds a breast lump at 4pm on a Friday. How easy is it for her to get a diagnosis and good advice before the beginning of the next week? What kind of weekend will she experience?" Keogh writes.

(H)