§ Sir Gerard Vaughanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress is being made to reduce the hours worked by junior hospital doctors and if he will now increase their overtime pay to reflect their additional work load when on duty.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeRotas worse than one in two have been banned, while the number of junior doctors286W working rotas worse than one in three has been reduced from 5,000 to 4,000. The exercise to reduce juniors' hours is a continuing one in order to improve patient care and I expect further progress to be made. I have no evidence that the changes have had any significant effect on work load. The pay of junior doctors has been increased very substantially as a result of recent pay awards.
§ Sir Gerard Vaughanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how much a hospital junior doctor in the registrar grade is paid on average for hours worked over 40 per week; how many such hours are worked; and how much this represents per hour.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe average registrar is paid £4,000 per annum over and above his normal salary for out-of-hours duties. He is on call for 45 hours a week of which he actually works 13 hours. The rate of pay is £6.84 for each period of four hours on call which equates to £1.71 per hour on call or £5.96 per hour worked.