Published 23 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1775
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1775

Letters

European Working Time Directive

Experience of directive in the Netherlands

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

When in 1993 the Dutch parliament approved a law restricting the working time of junior doctors to 48 hours a week, the surgical community in the Netherlands experienced all of the classic stages of mourning as described by Kübler-Ross. Major concerns were the reduction in training time, resulting in less experienced young surgeons, and the problems of devising rotas. The same worries are felt in the UK.¹

The Dutch Ministry of Labour has been making site visits to hospitals since 1997, inspecting the rotas and fining hospitals heavily if they didn’t comply with the rules. What are the results 15 years after the first introduction of the working time reduction?

Many departments of surgery struggled with the rotas. More non-training junior doctors were appointed to take care of the routine workload. Surgical procedures were considered to be training episodes unless otherwise stated and staff were made responsible for the continuity . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ 2300 RC Leiden, Netherlands

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