Consultant anaesthetist Dr Nikki Thompson, deputy chair of the British Medical Association's Scottish consultants committee, said cover was already in place to make sure high-quality care was provided for emergency cases.

"From the point of view of providing acute care and emergency work, I think for most of us in the acute specialties the reality is we are working evenings and weekends anyway. This isn't something that for us would be a change," she said.

"When I go on call for a weekend day I would be in from around 8am in the morning until 10pm at night and that is nothing out of the ordinary.

"That is about providing good, high quality, safe care for patients. In terms of the acute and emergency care, that consultant presence is there anyway."

However, she said any moves to extend the working week so that more planned surgery and clinics was available to patients would have "huge resource implications".

"It is not just about having the consultant there, as we all work as part of a team," she said. "To do planned surgery at the weekend, you need a consultant surgeon, a consultant anaesthetist, you need the extra theatre staff, you need the extra ward staff – nursing and medical – to look after the patients before and after surgery. You need your physiotherapists, depending on the type of surgery, and you need your lab back-up.

"So in terms of expanding the service by doing planned work at the weekend, that means putting a lot more resource into the service and I don't know if that resource is currently available to the health service."