New funding for junior doctors’ messes: how would you spend it?

Last week the BMA announced that all hospital trusts in England would get at least £30 000 (€340 400; $380 000) from the government to expand and improve their rest spaces for doctors.1 The hospitals identified as being in the greatest need will receive double that, it said. The funding will be held centrally by Health Education England, and trusts will have to work with their junior doctor forums to decide what to invest it in. Doctors nationwide have told The BMJ how they would spend it.

Danielle Eddy, specialty trainee year 3 in paediatrics and quality improvement fellow at Royal Gloucester Hospital and Bristol Children’s Hospital, and Sarah Arthur, paediatric trainee at Musgrove Hospital, Taunton, said, “Junior doctors are not superhuman: we need space to rest, eat, and relax. We recently renovated our mess, with limited time and money. We focused on what …