Should doctors work at the weekend?

smilersarah · July 16, 2015

Shhhhhh, grown ups are speaking!

oh dear is that your best:o

---------- Post added 16-07-2015 at 19:58 ----------

What? Who does this? Nobody I know.

---------- Post added 16-07-2015 at 17:37 ----------

maybe you dont are they all unemployed?? plenty of people do work 6 days and even 7 on rota systems, especially self employed as i am, it may only be an hour or two every day paperwork at weekends etc and doctors usually run their practices through a company anyway and patients are their customers.

Eric Arthur · July 16, 2015

Unless they're talking about about about reducing services during the week to allow more services to be done at the weekend I'm struggling to see how they can square the circle. For me the worry is that it is going to be done on the cheap.

The 40% figure comes from each working day being 20% of the workload on a 5 day week.

You can't have it both ways. Is it spreading services out over 7 days or an providing extra 40% on the weekend? Wha would you work towards if you were Jeremy Hunt?

I've not attempted to counter the 15% figure. I was talking about the context that it occurred in. For example, what if a lack of diagnostic services was causing the problem, would increasing the amount of consultants available cure this problem?

The report openly acknowledges these issues. What's your point? Have you got better data or just different data that you can highlight the problems with too?

What does Occams Razor say?

carl dsaadi · July 16, 2015

I work 7 days a week but like doctors I don't always work 8 hours every day, sometimes it's only 2 hours in a day, my doctor only offers appointment Monday to Friday between 0900 and 1200 which must be very frustrating for people that work Monday to Friday. Needing to see the doctor doesn't mean you are unfit for work but some people still need to take time off work if they want to see the doctor, it would be better if they can have an appointment to suit their working day.

taxman · July 16, 2015

Most doctors do work at the weekend, it's just that the NHS is paid (by the government) a certain amount Monday to Friday, and a different amount Saturday and Sunday. They pay more for week day services and less for weekends. Just spread the payments and it would be fine.

Nobody is saying doctors have to work 7 days a week...it just needs a better rota system. I used to work 3 weekends out of 4 then I'd get a four day break, it's normal to work shift patterns.

Cyclone · July 16, 2015

People don't often get to choose when they need a doctor.

Almost all the work of the NHS is on a scheduled routine basis. People, or at least someone, gets to choose exactly when they see someone.

GPs surgeries that open at weekends see little use, because most people will struggle on if they can at the weekend, and only call the doctors when Monday comes around and they still feel rough enough to justify (to themselves) time off work.

And A&E is open 24/7 anyway.

---------- Post added 16-07-2015 at 21:50 ----------

We get ill 24/7 so we should have medics 24/7.

If you get an acute condition that can't wait, there is already cover in the form of A&E. Or did you imagine that you had to hold on until Monday and hope you'd survive?

---------- Post added 16-07-2015 at 21:52 ----------

I'm just feeling a bit cheeky this afternoon. No offence is intended so I hope that none is taken.

Who is saying that the workload is increasing by 40%? It's the availability over 7 days that's changing from what I have read, meaning that the same number of doctors are spread over 7 days instead of 5 days.

That doesn't seem to be what they mean at all though.

---------- Post added 16-07-2015 at 21:53 ----------

It does for me and I've only skimmed it. Why doesn't it for you? I've provided the actual evidence you asked for in the shape of the actual published peer reviewed study that the 15% came from, where's your evidence to counter it?

Does the study actually try to assign to the rise in deaths at the weekend?

Does it even imply that it's due to the lack of staff doing routine work?

JFKvsNixon · July 16, 2015

You can't have it both ways. Is it spreading services out over 7 days or an providing extra 40% on the weekend? Wha would you work towards if you were Jeremy Hunt?

I'm not having it any way because I'm not the one making the proposal, I'm just commenting using the limited information that has been released. All I said was that the 7 day week can only be achieved by either cutting services during the week or by taking on more staff to achieve goals.

Remember as well, for the extra consultants to cover the extra hours you'll need all the back up staff to both support the consultant and also cover the extra hours.

So if I was the person making the decision, the decisions would be to go to a 7/6 day week and fund it properly, or keep the 5 day week but fund it so we can have more experienced staff on duty, when they're needed, with all the back up services.

The report openly acknowledges these issues. What's your point? Have you got better data or just different data that you can highlight the problems with too?

What does Occams Razor say?

I'm really not sure where you're going with this. I'm not disagreeing with the report. It's aim was to assess whether weekend admissions to hospital and/or already being an inpatient on weekend days were associated with any additional mortality risk, and it does confirm the 15% figure.

The paper wasn't put together with the view to explaining as to why this may happen or to put a context to the situation. This is confirmed what the authors say the increased mortality associated with emergency weekend hospital admissions may be multifactorial.

So they do not draw a conclusion as to why the mortality rate increases, and if they did, it would be an unsound conclusion because the research does not look at the reasons why the problem exists, it just established the problem.

Okay, lets go back the beginning so we can remain focused on the original point. I said:

There are plenty of doctors working for the NHS providing emergency treatment over the weekend, so your comparison doesn't really work.

The key here is that I said emergency treatment.

To which you posted the sound bite that you're 15% more likely to die in hospital over the weekend as a counter to my statement. I stand by my comment that your sound bite is meaningless in the context of my comment.

Cyclone · July 16, 2015

maybe you dont are they all unemployed?? plenty of people do work 6 days and even 7 on rota systems, especially self employed as i am, it may only be an hour or two every day paperwork at weekends etc and doctors usually run their practices through a company anyway and patients are their customers.

No. I'm self employed, my wife is a chartered engineer, my friends are solicitors, lecturers, psychologists, doctors, research scientists, and many in different IT areas.

Very few work weekends, very few work overtime.

I haven't worked overtime in about 4 years, and when I do work it, every minute is billed to the client.