§ Mr. Moonmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many junior hospital doctors are employed in NHS hospitals; and what machinery exists for regular communication between her Department and the junior hospital doctors.
§ Mrs. CastleApproximately 17,000 in England and Wales. My officials have regular meetings with representatives of both junior and senior hospital medical 429W staff to discuss terms and conditions of service, manpower, education, and other matters. I am myself available to meet them when necessary.
§ Mr. Moonmanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the amount as a percentage of overtime worked by junior hospital doctors in 1973–74 and to the latest available date.
§ Mrs. CastleInformation about junior doctors' hours of duty is given in the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body Report published on 18th September (Cmnd. 6243), especially paragraphs 11 to 14 and Appendix B. In paragraph 12, the Doctors' and Dentists' Review Body reports
Overall, full-time staff covered by the survey reported their weekly hours of duty as being 85.6 on average, of which 43.2 were normal duty hours and 42.4 were spent on stand-by or on-call outside these hours. This is about three hours less than the average weekly hours of duty of the small sample in the 1968 survey.They receive minimum periods of time-off, and where this cannot be given extra duty allowances are paid. The Review Body rejected as "wholly inappropriate" arrangementsinvolving premium rates for overtime work similar to those available to manual workers and to some lower paid non-manual workers(paragraph 15). It also explains thatthe present remuneration arrangements provide salary scales that cover medical duties during normal weekly hours of duty and at all other times required by the service (including on-call duties) and, in addition, extra duty allowances for periods which impinge on minimum off-duty time(paragraph 4).