Journal article
The impact of the European Working Time Directive ten years on: views of the UK medical graduates of 2002 surveyed in 2013-2014
- Abstract:
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Objectives: To report doctors’ views about the European Working Time Directive (EWTD).
Design: Survey of the medical graduates of 2002 (surveyed in 2013-2014).
Participants: Medical graduates.
Setting: UK.
Main outcome measures: Questions on views about the EWTD.
Results: The response rate was 64% (2056/3196). 12% of respondents agreed that the EWTD had benefited senior doctors, 39% that it benefited junior doctors, and 17% that it had benefited the NHS. More women (41%) than men (35%) agreed that the EWTD had benefited junior doctors. Surgeons (6%) and adult medical specialists (8%) were least likely to agree that the EWTD had benefited senior doctors. Surgeons (20%) were less likely than others to agree that the EWTD had benefited junior doctors, whilst specialists in emergency medicine (57%) and psychiatry (52%) were more likely to agree. Surgeons (7%) were least likely to agree that the EWTD had benefited the NHS.
Most respondents (62.2%) reported a positive effect upon work-life balance. With regard to quality of patient care, 454.9% reported a neutral effect, 4039.7% reported a negative effect and 15.3% a positive effect. Most respondents (71.0%) reported a negative effect of the EWTD on continuity of patient care, and 710.6% felt that the EWTD had had a negative effect upon junior doctors’ training opportunities. 521.9% reported a negative effect on efficiency in managing patient care.
Conclusions: Senior doctors agreed that the EWTD benefited doctors’ work-life balance. In other respects, they were more negative about it. Surgeons were the least positive about aspects of the EWTD.
- Publication status:
- In press
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 474.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1177/2054270414567523
Authors
- Publisher:
- SAGE Publications
- Journal:
- JRSM open More from this journal
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 2
- Pages:
- 2054270414567523
- DOI:
- ISSN:
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2054-2704
- Pubs id:
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pubs:590475
- UUID:
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uuid:8e714111-53bf-4987-b89d-1aa77416b106
- Local pid:
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pubs:590475
- Source identifiers:
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590475
- Deposit date:
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2016-01-18
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Smith et al
- Notes:
- © 2015 The Author(s) Creative Commons CC-BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (http://www.uk.sagepub.com/aboutus/openaccess.htm).
- Licence:
- Other
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