Welfare of Doctors

John Milne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Peter Prinsley]

I agree with my hon. Friend, as he will see.

There are odd shifts, night duties without hot food, and days and weeks that go by without an opportunity to meet supervising consultants. Short clinical attachments mean that the relationships previously created with senior mentors are rare. Just last week, I received an email from a surgeon who was my consultant in 1986. He had noticed in a surgical journal that I had become an MP, and I remembered him as the brilliant surgeon that he was. These are the relationships that make people feel as if they belong within a wider profession, but I doubt whether the young trainees of today would have the chance to make such lasting connections.

There is little security of employment, because doctors are obliged to apply every year or two for another post, probably in another place. The doctors’ mess used to be a place where young doctors could find a sort of surrogate family in an unfamiliar place, but that is now sadly a thing of the past. According to research from the British Medical Association, fewer than 10% of UK trusts or health boards offer hot food after 11 o’clock at night.

The demands of the job affect relationships. Many young doctors are in relationships with fellow doctors, but lucky indeed are the couple who can work and live in the same place, or even contemplate raising a young family together. Sadly, relationship difficulties and breakdowns are commonplace. Holidays must be taken at odd times, and rotas are inflexible. Doctors are left unable to take a day off to attend a wife’s graduation, a sister’s wedding or even their own wedding—all true.

Progression in a chosen career depends on a multitude of competitive interviews and hugely costly professional exams. There is no security of employment. In a survey called “Fight Fatigue” conducted by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, 50% of respondents said that they had had an accident or a near miss when driving home after a night shift—I recall fatalities like this in my own hospital; 84% were too tired to drive home after a night shift; and only 64% had access to any rest facilities. What would we say if the same were true of airline pilots, to whom anaesthetists are sometimes compared?

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

Last week I met with a GP in my constituency, and she described very much what the hon. Gentleman is talking about: at the end of the day, after blitzing through 25 patients, back to back, she sometimes found herself sitting in her car, simply too tired to drive home for half an hour. Does he agree that we are expecting too much of our medical staff in relying on their dedication to go beyond the call of duty?

[Peter Prinsley]

I agree with exactly what the hon. Gentleman said.

In a recent survey, 29% of hospital doctors said they were unable to take any breaks at all during the working day; for GPs, the figure rose to 40%. That is simply not safe, for either doctors or patients. In a 2023 survey conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons, half of respondents cited poor working conditions as the main challenge in their job. It is no wonder that so many colleagues are retiring too soon. The average age for a radiologist to leave the NHS is now 56, yet we are desperately short of these vital specialists. This is happening across many specialties. Just in 2023, 23,000 English doctors left the profession prematurely.

We cannot afford to lose our most experienced doctors. Too often they are discouraged from continuing in practice by a bureaucratic and costly appraisal and revalidation process, and they simply throw in the towel. Their experience is a vital asset to the NHS, and we must think carefully about how we retain them or return them to the workforce. One solution will be to create simple routes for experienced doctors to practise flexibly.