Junior doctors' reaction to 48 hour limit

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1585

Published 10 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1585
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1585

Letters

European Working Time Directive

Junior doctors’ reaction to 48 hour limit

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In their editorial on the European Working Time Directive, Cairnset al incorrectly say that the SiMAP judgment applies to bothresident and non-resident time on call when it specificallyrelates to time spent resident on call.¹ ²

Junior doctors are justifiably concerned about the impact ofthe directive on training. The BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee(JDC) is particularly concerned about the impact of the strictinterpretation of the directive on current surgical trainingbut changes including lengthening the number of years spenttraining may help to compensate for the decrease in weekly hours.

Cairns et al suggest that the working time legislation has hada negative impact on the work-life balance of junior doctors.In a survey carried out by the JDC 55% of respondents said thatthe 48 hour limit would improve the quality of their lives (25%no effect, 20% negative; 464 respondents).³

Junior doctors need to be . . . [Full text of this article]

Andrew R Thornley, lead, European Working Time Directive¹, Peter Maguire, chairman², Ram Moorthy, chairman¹

¹ Junior Doctors Committee, BMA, London WC1H 9JP, ² BMA Council Working Group on the European Working Time Directive, BMA

andrew.thornley@blueyonder.co.uk

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