By Richard Staines
2 June 2010
Innovation in the NHS could be stifled because hospital consultants have less time to devote to developing new services, doctors’ leaders have said today.
The findings are based on a British Medical Association postal survey of 2,093 consultants across the UK, conducted in May this year. It asked consultants about the amount of time they spent with patients, the composition of their clinical and non-clinical responsibilities and potential changes to their working arrangements in the future.
Under their standard contract, consultants should have ten hours a week available for Supporting Professional Activities. This allows them to introduce new services, conduct research and clinical governance and train junior doctors.
But more than a fifth – 21% – said time spent on SPAs had been reduced since the new consultant contract took effect in 2004. Only 7% said time spent on SPAs had increased.
More than one in seven said their employer had reduced the standard numbers of SPAs for all consultants and nearly a 23.8% said their employer had reduced SPAs for newly appointed consultants.
Although respondents were contracted to work an average of 32 hours providing direct care per week, this actually took up 36 hours of their working week on average.
Dr Mark Porter, chair of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: ‘Pretty much every clinical service that a hospital provides has been planned during this time. If hospitals cut it, they risk stifling innovation and allowing the NHS to stagnate.
‘This is being driven by the financial pressures we all face, but it’s a false economy, because the new services consultants develop often save the NHS money.’
Bill McMillan, head of medical pay and workforce at NHS Employers, said: ‘SPAs are an important tool for fulfilling the requirements of doctors and improving health care.
‘Job planning arrangements and other mechanisms are already in place to help ensure that local NHS organisations can decide locally how much time on SPAs is most appropriate. This is to enable organisational objectives to be met as well as individual consideration of the doctors’ needs and those of their patients.
‘There is scope to review and refresh job planning training to reflect good practice whilst retaining local flexibility and we are currently in discussion with the BMA regarding this and other aspects of SPAs.’
A Department of Health spokesman added: ‘This limited sample suggests that some [consultants] may be spending less time on activities like research. This may be because there are many more doctors coming through the training system and new consultants rightly spend more time consolidating their learning by focusing on patient care.’
2 June 2010
Innovation in the NHS could be stifled because hospital consultants have less time to devote to developing new services, doctors’ leaders have said today.
The findings are based on a British Medical Association postal survey of 2,093 consultants across the UK, conducted in May this year. It asked consultants about the amount of time they spent with patients, the composition of their clinical and non-clinical responsibilities and potential changes to their working arrangements in the future.
Under their standard contract, consultants should have ten hours a week available for Supporting Professional Activities. This allows them to introduce new services, conduct research and clinical governance and train junior doctors.
But more than a fifth – 21% – said time spent on SPAs had been reduced since the new consultant contract took effect in 2004. Only 7% said time spent on SPAs had increased.
More than one in seven said their employer had reduced the standard numbers of SPAs for all consultants and nearly a 23.8% said their employer had reduced SPAs for newly appointed consultants.
Although respondents were contracted to work an average of 32 hours providing direct care per week, this actually took up 36 hours of their working week on average.
Dr Mark Porter, chair of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: ‘Pretty much every clinical service that a hospital provides has been planned during this time. If hospitals cut it, they risk stifling innovation and allowing the NHS to stagnate.
‘This is being driven by the financial pressures we all face, but it’s a false economy, because the new services consultants develop often save the NHS money.’
Bill McMillan, head of medical pay and workforce at NHS Employers, said: ‘SPAs are an important tool for fulfilling the requirements of doctors and improving health care.
‘Job planning arrangements and other mechanisms are already in place to help ensure that local NHS organisations can decide locally how much time on SPAs is most appropriate. This is to enable organisational objectives to be met as well as individual consideration of the doctors’ needs and those of their patients.
‘There is scope to review and refresh job planning training to reflect good practice whilst retaining local flexibility and we are currently in discussion with the BMA regarding this and other aspects of SPAs.’
A Department of Health spokesman added: ‘This limited sample suggests that some [consultants] may be spending less time on activities like research. This may be because there are many more doctors coming through the training system and new consultants rightly spend more time consolidating their learning by focusing on patient care.’
