Hospital consultant says shifts worked by trainee doctors are 'inappropriate'

A hospital consultant has said the shifts that trainee doctors are forced to work are inappropriate.

Professor John Crown was reacting to Junior Doctor Libby Ennis's radio diary on Newstalk Breakfast yesterday.

In it she described choosing to sleep rather than eat while working an almost 30 hour shift over the Bank Holiday.

Regulations state junior doctors should only work 48 hours a week, but many do far more than that.

This month, the IMO will ballot their 2,000 junior doctors on industrial action as part of their "Enough is Enough" campaign against excessive working hours.

Professor John Crown said the dependence on the labour of trainee doctors is inappropriate.

"Sadly to say it is not extraordinary its ordinary it’s the way our system is," he said.

"We have a system which depends hugely disproportionately on the labour of junior doctors which is in appropriate in the first place and then we expect them to work inappropriate shifts."