Do NHS hospital consultants work weekends?
No, most hospital consultants do not work normally at weekends. MyHSN thinks they should. As do the public. They could if they wanted to.
As most consultants are not there, most hospitals do not run routine services at weekends, or on bank holidays, or 24 hours a day.
This is the primary reason they are jammed and frail elderly people often spend over 12 hours on a trolley in an A&E corridor, and ambulances cannot offload their patients.
They are essentially 5 day Mon-Fri 9am-5pm institutions. In fact they are not even that. Most consultants start to slope off and go home at 12pm on a Friday. So they are 4.5 day institutions in reality.
No (few) ward rounds
Hence most wards do not have a weekend or bank holiday ward round. That’s no ward rounds for 4 days over Easter. A few specialist wards will get some ward rounds. These may or may not involve the consultants (bosses).
This is why ward discharges fall to 60% of normal on a Saturday and 40% on a Sunday (or Bank Holiday). This is a major part of the reason why our hospitals are jammed.
Also getting key investigations like scans is harder.
No (few) operations and procedures
There are few planned operations and no outpatient clinics. Some [“including us!” MyHSN Ed] think all of this is a waste of a valuable resource and public money. The building still needs heating and the lights are on. The patients are still in their beds. And the hard working nurses are there holding the fort.
A choice
That most senior hospital doctors (consultants) are present in small numbers at weekends and on bank holidays – about 1 in 20 of who could be there – is their choice.
It is the choice of the hospital consultants, and their union, the British Medical Association (BMA) – which, interestingly, opposed the launch of the NHS. No one in the government or Department of Health (DHSC) has told them to work this way. In the UK, many doctors have never fully supported the NHS, which is disappointing.
However many of those same consultants see patients privately at weekends, often with easy access to the consultants email and/or mobile number. I.e. they could work at weekends if they wanted to.
Summary
The vast majority of NHS hospital consultants do not work normally as weekends or on bank holidays. They should.
It’s easier to get Peruvian asparagus from Waitrose on a Sunday than see a doctor. Full stop. Happy Easter 🐰.
