Junior doctors raise patient care concerns

Of the 1,000 training medics polled by the Medical Protection Society, 70 per cent said they feel as though they do not have enough time to give patients the care they need.

And half said that they had concerns about quality of care in their workplace.

Meanwhile, 82 per cent said they struggled with long hours in the last year, and almost two-thirds said they had difficulty with heavy workloads.

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One in 20 junior medics said that they had been forced to have time off work due to stress.

The results of the new poll comes as thousands of junior doctors start their new jobs today - a day which has been known as “black Wednesday” in the past because it has been linked to higher death rates among patients.

Pallavi Bradshaw, medicolegal adviser at the Medical Protection Society, said it was concerned that 70 per cent of junior doctors felt that a lack of time compromised the care they gave patients.

“This highlights the need for junior doctors to be supported by senior clinicians and management during this challenging stage in their career.”

Commenting on the poll, Andrew Collier, co-chair of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said: “It’s vitally important that junior doctors feel supported and encouraged to speak out about concerns over patient care.

“It’s really worrying that so many junior doctors feel they don’t have enough time to give patients the care they need and that many have had to raise concerns over the quality of care. This shows that rising workloads are becoming a real barrier to patient care.”