Press Release
12th May 2003
NHS Inflexibility will Waste Money and
Cancel Operations - McNeil
MSP for Greenock & Inverclyde, Duncan McNeil, is questioning
Scotland’s Health Ministers and local health chiefs over
reports that a cut in junior doctors’ hours has left the NHS
wasting money and cancelling operations.
It is feared that, following an agreement to cut junior doctors’ workload, senior consultants are being paid to cover their junior colleagues’ shifts.
"Not only is paying a consultant to do a junior doctor’s job more expensive," Mr McNeil told the Telegraph today, "it has been reported that, as a result of covering for a junior colleague the previous night, consultants have been unavailable to perform operations the following day. This has led to cancellations and, it follows, an increase in waiting times."
The problem, Mr McNeil said, was that the NHS seemed too rigid and inflexible to adapt to changing employment practices:
"I am in no way against reducing employees’ working hours. But time and again, when changes in working practices - changes which work perfectly well up and down the land - are applied to the NHS, the service threatens to collapse. In what other industry would this be tolerated?
"The rigid NHS structure seems unable to cope with change and this cannot be allowed to continue.
"That is why I have tabled a series of questions to the Health Minister, demanding to know how much this practice has cost the NHS, how many operations have had to be cancelled and what plans it has to sit down with the Royal Colleges and address how the impact of the Working Time Regulations on patient care can be minimised.
"Locally, I was pleased to note that Argyll and Clyde denies using consultants to cover for junior doctors and I have written to Chief Executive, Neil Campbell, asking him to confirm this.
"However, the wider issues - how we make the
NHS more responsive to our community’s needs and better able
to adapt to changes in society without producing costly anomalies
such as this - remain. Accordingly, I am looking forward to
discussing with the Health Board how we can encourage the Royal
Colleges and others to address the issue of minimising the impact
of the reduction of junior doctors’ hours on the services
available to the public."
ENDS
Back to Current Press Releases
[ HOME ] [ News ] [ Report to the People ] [ Interact ] [ Links ] [ E-Mail ]
[ Copyright ] [ UK Online ] [ Scottish Parliament ]