NHS rotas so chaotic staff asked to work on their wedding day
NHS rotas are so chaotic that doctors have been asked to work on their wedding days, the Health Secretary has said.
Announcing an overhaul of working conditions for medics, Victoria Atkins said the measures would “vastly improve doctors’ work-life balance” and reduce their stress levels.
Junior doctors are now the only staff group in the NHS which has refused to agree a pay deal with the Government.
Pay talks between the Health Secretary and the British Medical Association (BMA) broke down in December, raising the prospect that strikes could continue until a general election.
However, health officials and doctors’ groups, including the BMA have continued discussions about other aspects of working lives, after many doctors highlighted areas of concern.
Yesterday, the Ms Atkins announced measures intended to give junior doctors more control over their schedules.
She told The Telegraph urged the BMA to consider what had been achieved thanks to “constructive” work between the Government, NHS and doctors groups including the BMA, and come back to the table to discuss pay.
The new measures being rolled out across the NHS, follow widespread complaints that medics’ plans are at the mercy of ever-changing schedules, including cases where doctors have been asked to work on their own wedding day, or during their honeymoon.
Under instructions from NHS England, hospital rota planners will now be told to honour annual leave which is booked, provide working schedules with eight weeks’ notice and deploy technology so doctors can have more say over when their shifts fall.
Ms Atkins said: “It cannot be right that doctors should be scheduled to work on their wedding day or during their honeymoon when they have given months of notice – just one of the many examples I have heard from doctors since joining the department. I hope we can build on this as we try to find a way to end the BMA’S pay dispute.”
Junior doctors have a mandate to strike or take action short of a strike until mid-september, having reballoted members earlier this year. The doctors’ union is asking for a pay rise of 35 per cent over several years. The Government says they have received an average uplift of 8.8 per cent this financial year. Consultants, who have also been on strike, voted to accept increases of up to 19 per cent this year.
Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairmen of the junior doctors committee, said: “It’s great that NHS England has made commitments to improve on some of the issues we’ve raised with them, and we’ll be holding them to those commitments in the days to come.
“However, if junior doctors are to be valued as much as the NHS claims, they will need to see meaningful steps towards getting their pay restored.”