Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential benefit to the welfare of doctors of limiting the number of night shifts a junior doctor can work in a month.

The junior doctors’ contract introduced in 2016 included measures aimed at improving the wellbeing of the junior doctor workforce including new, stronger limits on working hours and patterns. These included reducing the maximum number of consecutive nights shifts to four (down from seven) and ensuring at least 46 hours rest at the end of a run of three or four consecutive nights.

A joint review of the effectiveness of the contract has now been concluded by the British Medical Association (BMA) and NHS Employers which has resulted in even more robust safety and rest limits; for example, a rest period of 46 hours will be applied following any number of rostered night shifts. The BMA and NHS Employers have also agreed good rostering guidance that emphasises the need to have a balanced rota cycle with different types of shifts, including night shifts, evenly distributed to manage fatigue.

A junior doctors’ work schedule is designed to meet their training needs and this also, in practice, limits the number of night shifts they are expected to complete (as training usually takes place during the day time).