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Take a look at a selection of our recent media coverage:

On-call should be opt-in for senior doctors aged over 60, Royal Colleges advise

15th December 2023

Senior doctors should get flexible or part-time working options and from the age of 60 should opt into on‐call only if they wish to, according to joint guidance from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

The new ‘Later Careers 2023’ guidance aims to support senior doctors aged 50 and over – some 47% of the physician workforce – to continue working sustainably and help to mitigate the current NHS workforce crisis.

Supporting the retention of senior doctors in this way ‘brings benefits to patients, the individual doctor, the hospital, and the wider medical community‘, the RCP said.

The document is an update of similar guidance from 2018 and is based on findings from a survey of doctors aged 50 and over conducted in 2022 by the three Royal Colleges.

The guidance also advises that the appraisal of senior doctors should be ‘sensitive and proportionate to their working arrangements‘, and that clinical leads ‘should begin discussions about doctors’ intentions for the next 10 years as early as felt necessary’, and certainly by the time a doctor turns 55.

Recommendations set out in the guidance include:

  • Making flexible or part‐time working options available to senior doctors
  • Consultants opting into on‐call only if they wish to after the age of 60
  • Employers embedding time for teaching for senior doctors’ job plans
  • Employers considering whether doctors need a full licence to practise to keep working in a teaching or examining role
  • Job planning as a department to ensure roles are complementary
  • Making appraisal of senior doctors sensitive and proportionate to their working arrangements
  • Employers remaining in contact with recently retired physicians or those not currently working.

The survey underpinning the guidance found that one in three consultants who are not yet retired express they wish to retire early.

But over half of respondents (58%) said they would delay retirement and continue to work if they could reduce hours and/or work flexibly.

RCP censor and consultant gastroenterologist Dr Harriet Gordon said: ‘Senior doctors are incredibly valuable to the NHS and have much to contribute clinically, but also in teaching and mentoring the next generation of physicians. 

‘Our survey showed that a large proportion of senior consultants have a strong interest in continuing working if it was possible to work more flexibly.

‘Considering the significant demands facing health services due to workforce shortages, this finding is encouraging. The guidance offers key recommendations that would support experienced hospital doctors to continue working sustainably in the NHS.‘

The Royal Colleges said they ‘will continue to promote this approach to governments and employers‘.

Senior doctors ‘at risk of burnout‘

Earlier this year, data showed that one in five (19%) of consultant physicians are at risk of burnout, and an NHS consultant missing three days of work for mental health reasons is 58% more likely to leave three months later.

In June, NHS England published its own guidance for retaining doctors in late stage career within the NHS and supporting them to stay well.

After the publication of NHS England’s long-term workforce plan in July, Amanda Pritchard admitted that there were no ‘specific costs’ associated with retention elements of the plan.

The senior doctor workforce is a major concern for the NHS and last month the UK Government offered a 4.95% investment in pay for this financial year, on top of the 6% uplift, in order to avert further strike action.

But a 2023 survey showed that pay increases alone will only have ‘a modest impact’ on NHS staff retention because the main problems are stress and high workload.

Consultants now effectively working four months of the year for free, says BMA

16th May 2023

A ballot for industrial action by consultants in England has opened after pay talks with the Government broke down, the BMA has announced.

The Government’s final pay offer represented a real-terms pay cut, the BMA noted, which would continue the downward trend seen over the past 15 years. Indeed, even before taking inflation into account, consultants’ take-home pay has declined by 35% since 2008/9.

‘As a result of this, consultants are now effectively working four months of the year for free,’ said Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants committee. He added that they had been left with ‘no option but to proceed with the ballot for industrial action‘.

While Dr Sharma acknowledged the constructive manner in which the talks were approached by Government officials, he highlighted that ‘ultimately the Government made a political choice to cut our pay again this year and unless we can secure a commitment that the Government will take the necessary steps to restore our pay over the long term, we simply cannot accept an offer that sees our pay fall even further.’

The ballot, which opened on Monday, will remain open until 27 June 2023. In the meantime, the BMA is urging the Government to return to talks and put forward a ‘reasonable offer’.

This comes after a consultative ballot in February 2023 saw 17,000 BMA-member NHS consultants in England voting for strike action. Turnout was 61% and 86% voted in favour of strike action. While not a legal mandate for strike action, the BMA stressed this ’emphatic result’ and the apparent ‘strength of the anger amongst England’s senior doctors’.

‘Consultants are not worth a third less than they were 15 years ago,’ Dr Sharma continued. ‘With elective waiting lists standing at 7.3 million, we cannot afford to lose any more highly experienced clinicians who are leaving or taking breaks from the NHS due to pay erosion. NHS patients deserve better than an understaffed health service, and NHS staff deserve better than a Government which does not recognise their worth at a time of global shortages of skilled healthcare professionals.’

If consultants do vote in favour of a walk out, it will be the first time since 1975 that senior doctors will have taken such action.

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