JUNIOR DOCTORS' HOURS AND THE DEATH OF Dr ALAN MASSIE

EDM number 1056 in 1993-94, proposed by Dawn Primarolo on 19/04/1994.

That this House notes that junior doctors consist of hospital house officers, senior house officers, registrars and senior registrars, the average age of whom is over 30, and in total there are 23,438 in England; further notes that there are by the Government's own admission 91 junior doctors still contracted for more than 83 hours per week and 11,205 contracted for more than 72 hours with the worst three regions being Yorkshire with 1,381, North Western with 1,369 and North East Thames with 1,229; is greatly concerned that the Government will not meet its target of no contracts of more than 72 hours by 31 December 1994; is further concerned that the British Medical Association discovered in a survey in January of this year that 1,200 junior doctors routinely worked more than 83 hours; expresses its condolences to the family of Dr Alan Massie who died following an 86-hour working week; believes the situation where England has the lowest number of consultants per head of population in Europe and therefore unacceptably long working hours weeks for junior doctors is inimical to good patient care as well as dangerous for the doctors; calls for the rigorous implementation of the New Deal Guidelines whereby those on call should have at least four hours rest within a duty period of 16 hours and eight hours rest in any 32 hour period; and concludes that if lorry drivers can only work 10 hours in 24, that if train drivers can only work a maximum of 12 hours without a 12 hour rest period and airline pilots are limited to a 55 hour week and 90 hours in any two consecutive weeks then junior doctors have a legitimate and pressing case for all contracts over 72 hours to end as soon as possible, ensuring that junior doctors do not actually work more than 56 hours, and certainly before, not after, 31 December 1994. (Relevant registered interest declared).

This motion has been signed by a total of 115 MPs.