§ Lord McColl of Dulwichasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the number of junior doctors working in excess of the nationally agreed limits on hours has risen by 78 per cent since September 1998; and whether one in four junior doctors now work in excess of the New Deal arrangements. [HL4014]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings Heath4,793 juniors—that is 15.9 per cent or one in six of all posts—were working, on average, more than 56 hours a week in September 1998. Compliance had improved every six months 27WA since March 1997, when it stood at 6,485, or over one in five.
The numbers working over 56 hours are likely to have fallen further since then, given the continuing action to improve working hours. The regional task force chairmen—who are responsible for providing support and advice to the National Health Service on reducing junior doctor's hours—have confirmed that, keeping to a consistent definition of hours worked, they would have expected the numbers of junior doctors working more than 56 hours to have fallen further since September 1998, continuing the trend after March 1997.
However, in December 1998, with the support and agreement of the British Medical Association's Junior Doctors' Committee, we introduced in England new and tougher compliance criteria in order to safeguard the quality of rest periods for junior doctors. Although they would not in fact represent a change in actual hours worked, any compliance figures calculated on this new basis could well be higher. As expected, 8,508 posts, or 28.6 per cent of all juniors' posts, were found at 31 March 1999 not to be complying with this different and tougher measure which, for the first time, included, for example, criteria on the length of continuous rest periods at weekends. The Scottish Health Department issued similar guidance to their trusts under NHS Circular MEL(1998)40 in April this year.
We are committed to improving hours and working conditions of junior doctors, and are doing so.