§ Mr. Home RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the average and maximum weekly number of hours on duty and on call for junior hospital doctors. [17385]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe standard working week for junior hospital doctors is 40 hours. The majority of them also contract for a number of additional duty hours, which vary according to their contract of employment.
The maximum weekly hours of duty for junior hospital doctors including additional duty hours, are laid down in the "New Deal". From 1 January, these are 56 hours and 64 hours for those contracted to work full and partial shifts respectively, 72 hours for those contracted for on-call rotas in hard-pressed posts and 83 for those on on-call rotas in non hard-pressed posts. From 1 January, no junior doctor should actually work more than 56 hours a week regardless of their contracted hours.
The census in Scotland on juniors' hours as at 31 December 1994 shows that the average contracted hours of full-time juniors who contract for additional duty hours was 71 hours a week. The maximum contracted hours was 108. The maximum contracted hours shown was 108, but this figure relates to posts in remote areas where the actual working hours are less than 56 hours per week.
Average hours of work, as opposed to contracted hours, are not held centrally. However, the 23rd report of the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration, a copy of which is in the Library, contained the results of an independent survey of junior doctors and dentists in Britain which indicates that average hours of work were, in October 1993, 53.4 a week.