More than half of junior doctors work more than their scheduled hours

More than half of UK trainee doctors regularly work longer than their scheduled hours, a GMC survey has found.

Over 50 000 doctors in training completed the GMC’s national training survey, and 59% of respondents said that they regularly worked longer than their scheduled hours. A third (29%) said that they never did so.

Nearly half of respondents said that their workload intensity was heavy or very heavy in the day (43%) and at night (46%). A fifth (22%) said that they were often tired at work.

However, most respondents said that they were satisfied with the training they were receiving. Reflecting on their current post, 82% of respondents rated the quality of experience as good or excellent, and 83% rated clinical supervision as good or excellent. Three quarters (74%) of trainees said that they would recommend their current post to a friend, and a similar proportion (79%) believed that their post would be useful or very useful for their future career.

Trainees were less positive about the quality of the teaching they were receiving, with only 66% rating the teaching in their current post as excellent or good.

The GMC’s annual national training survey 2013 was completed by 52 797 of the 54 055 doctors in training in the UK (97% response rate) in March, April, and May this year.

The chairman of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee, Ben Molyneux, said that working long hours “should be consigned to the dustbin of history.”

He said, “We cannot ignore evidence that tired people are more likely to make mistakes.” Handover was also “an area that needs attention,” he added.

The BMA is currently in talks with NHS Employers about changes to the junior doctor contract, which it hopes could deal with problems highlighted in the GMC training survey.

Dean Royles, chief executive of NHS Employers, said that the results of the survey provided “compelling evidence” for a need to change the contracts of hospital doctors. “Current arrangements are clearly impacting on care, and doctors need to recognise the urgent need to change,” he said.

The GMC has said that it will ask employers to review the ways that they manage and monitor working patterns so that it could identify the working patterns and rotas that were most likely to lead to excessive fatigue. It will also review how working patterns and compliance with working time regulations are managed and monitored.

• Read the full survey results online at www.gmc-uk.org/education/surveys.asp.