THE father of a junior doctor who died driving home after working long hours at a hospital has welcomed an offer to discuss the pressures faced by new medics with the First Minister.
Alex Salmond yesterday agreed to meet Brian Connelly after his daughter Lauren's death was raised during First Minister's Questions. The First Minister said discussions should take place with doctors' leaders to determine whether improvements could be made to working hours.
Dr Connelly was killed in an accident on the M8 in 2011, seven weeks into her first job after graduating in medicine from Glasgow University.
Her father, 61, who lives in East Kilbride, believes she was suffering from intense fatigue built up over the previous weeks of long shifts. He has called for an overhaul of working practices.
At Holyrood, Labour's health spokesman Neil Findlay urged Mr Salmond to discuss the issue in person with him and Mr Connelly. He said: "Lauren's father is not looking for someone to blame; he just wants to ensure no other junior doctor has the same experience as Lauren, and that no-one else suffers the grief and misery his family has suffered."
Mr Salmond, who offered condolences to Dr Connelly's family and friends on behalf of the parliament, said he would be happy to discuss the issue with her father and Mr Findlay. He told MSPs: "Junior doctors work no more than 48 hours per week on average. We continue our work with NHS boards and professional bodies to review best practice and how it can be used to improve the working lives of junior doctors."
He agreed constant monitoring and discussions with the British Medical Association should take place to seek improvements. But he added: "The average number of hours per week that junior doctors work has reduced from 58 hours in 2004 to up to 48 hours today."
He added: "We are perfectly happy to have meetings to discuss how further improvements can be made, but let us recognise … there has been progress and let us hope further progress can be made."
Mr Connelly said: "I very much welcome the opportunity to meet the First Minister and his colleagues to help them understand the working hours and the actual hours junior doctors work.
"I would hope to enlist their support in making long-overdue changes that are going to help not only junior doctors but also to improve patient care."
Mr Findlay also welcomed the move, saying: "Lauren's story is heartbreaking and it's very brave of her father to speak publicly about the pressures facing junior doctors. The system must be reviewed because it's unacceptable junior doctors work 10-hour plus, often much longer, shifts for days and days at a time."
Although health boards across Scotland comply with European legislation limiting junior doctors' working hours to 48 a week, they do this by averaging hours worked over a period of six months.
As part of a campaign calling for a review of hospital and social care capacity, The Herald has revealed some health boards are still rostering junior doctors to work 90 hours or more a week.
Safety experts and Labour and LibDem MSPs have backed Mr Connelly's call for a review of working practices.
Professor Rory O'Neill, of Stirling University, the editor of environmental health magazine Hazards, highlighted a US study in 2005 which warned of the high risks faced by medical interns who got behind the wheel when over-tired. He warned that "severely fatigued workers can be as incapable behind the wheel as drink-drivers".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article