Improve out-of-hours care - Royal College of Physicians

Out-of-hours patient care is suffering say doctors Continue reading the main story

Junior doctors are having to care for too many patients because there are not enough consultants on duty at weekends and in the evenings, according to the Royal College of Physicians.

The RCP says there is mounting evidence of poor out-of-hours care in hospitals.

It is calling for a consultant to be on duty for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

The RCP carried out a survey of 126 hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It found that none had more than 12 hours of weekend cover from senior specialists in emergency medicine.
Just 3% provided nine to 12 hours of cover, and nearly three quarters of hospitals in the survey had no specialist cover at all.

The survey follows research published in the summer which revealed people admitted as emergencies on a weekend were more likely to die than if they were brought in during the week.