Junior doctors on maternity leave hit children's services

Published on Monday 31 August 2009 09:59

CHILDREN'S services in Lothian hospitals are being stretched by the large number of junior doctors getting pregnant.

Almost a quarter of trainee doctors working in paediatrics are currently on maternity leave, forcing their colleagues at work to take on long hours.

The remaining paediatric trainees are being forced to work "considerably" over their allotted time in order to fill gaps in rotas, especially at evenings and weekends.

The high maternity leave rate is exacerbating problems caused by a general shortage of trainees specialising in the field.

Paul Padfield, NHS Lothian's director of medical education, has warned the health board of "particular pressures in paediatrics and emergency medicine".

"Rotas for paediatric trainees across the region have consistently fallen short.

"This shortfall has been distributed across the region to enable services to continue at the cost of trainees working considerably over their usual hours by filling gaps at nights and weekends," he says, in a report to the board.

"There is a shortage of paediatric trainees across the UK, exacerbated by advance trainees rotating out of their normal programme to get specialist experience available only in specialist paediatric teaching hospitals, and by a level of maternity leave currently running at almost 23 per cent of the trainee cohort."

He added that in the past these holes could be plugged by locum doctors, but the supply of these had "dried up almost completely".

The situation casts serious doubt on whether paediatric trainees – who are considered junior doctors – will be compliant with the European Working Time Directive (EWTD), which states hospital staff must work no longer than 48 hours a week.

Mr Padfield adds: "Indeed, they may not even be compliant without finding additional people.

"There are particular pressures in St John's where a sufficient number of paediatric trainees is needed to provide the out-of-hours cover."

The 23 per cent maternity leave rate is thought to be similar to other parts of the UK, and to have remained reasonably constant in recent years.

About two-thirds of medical school graduates are women, and a higher proportion of women than men choose paediatrics as a speciality.

Alan Robertson, chairman of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee, said: "The age range covered is likely to be from the mid-20s to mid-30s, which is obviously an age where women would be likely to give birth.

"The NHS workforce as a whole is changing and we have to adapt to cope with issues such as this."

Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association, said: "It's not difficult to make contingency plans, a load of women don't just fall pregnant at once and leave.

"You know many months in advance of someone going off on maternity leave. There have been shortages in this area for a long time and what's needed is some forward planning."

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