Doctors: Conditions of Employment

(asked on 2nd December 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that doctors working outside of normal office hours have access to (a) rest facilities and (b) food and drink facilities.


Answered by
Philip Dunne Portrait
Philip Dunne
This question was answered on 12th December 2016

This information is not collected centrally.

It is the responsibility of employers to ensure that they comply with requirements to provide healthy and safe working conditions. The national contract for junior doctors contains specific provisions on access to food and drink and access to rest facilities; this includes that doctors on a night shift must have access to a space in which to take meals and other rest breaks and that arrangements should be made for accessing hot and cold food and drink outside the periods when restaurant facilities are open.

In addition the new contract for junior doctors contains a number of other provisions designed to ensure safe working hours, reducing the maximum number of hours a week that junior doctors can be asked to work and the number of consecutive night and long day shifts. These will be overseen in every trust by a Guardian of Safe Working Hours.

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