NHS: Professional Qualifications Directive

Lord Ryder of Wensum Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is the responsibility of individual NHS trusts to ensure that service rotas are compliant with the working time directive. In line with the Government’s coalition agreement to reduce duplication and resources spent on administration, the department reduced bureaucracy for the service by removing the burden of central monitoring of compliance and we are leaving this role to organisations at local level. The last assessment of the working time directive was undertaken in January 2010 and reported that nearly 99% of doctors’ rotas were compliant with the directive but we are in no doubt about the concerns that exist within the medical professions about the inflexibilities within the rules of the directive. As regards the mutual recognition directive, the department does not plan to collect directly any data relating to it. The professional regulators. who are the competent authorities, collect data in respect of the number of people applying for recognition under the directive.

[Lord Ryder of Wensum]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the fact that the clinicians at the Institute of Cancer Research where I am the chairman regard the working time directive as being of no benefit at all to their patients? In view of this fact, can he please tell me now—or if not now, in a letter with a copy placed in your Lordships’ Library—the details of the meetings that have taken place between Ministers and senior officials and their opposite numbers in Brussels? The Government have long believed that they are able to revoke or to revise this directive but so far, after two and a half years, I see no progress at all.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is important to understand that the EU social partner process, which is driving the discussions at the moment and has been extended to 31 December, is autonomous. It operates independently of both the Commission and the Council and the Government have no formal role in any social partner negotiations. Having said that, we have made it clear to the Commission and to partners in Europe that securing long-term sustainable growth has to be the EU’s key priority. We will continue to work with our partners to ensure that EU measures support labour-market flexibility and do not impose significant costs on member states or burdens on business. The Government would welcome proposals coming forward that would preserve the right for all workers, including those in the NHS, to choose the hours that they work, including in particular flexibility in the areas of on-call time and compensatory rest as well as the preservation of the individual opt-out.