Number of NHS doctors speaking out 'unprecedented'

"It feels like medic-bashing season," says one medical student.

"Given how hard we work, it's tough to hear what's coming from the secretary of state," adds Hannah Barham-Brown, who's in her fourth year of training.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says not enough senior doctors are working weekends and it's "killing" patients.

Normally doctors don't publicly complain, but after Mr Hunt said 6,000 people were dying each year because of weekend staffing, they're speaking out.

The hashtag #ImInWorkJeremy was trending over the weekend and an open letter to David Cameron criticising Mr Hunt for being "irresponsible" in suggesting senior doctors work less, has been shared thousands of times.

Trainee doctors and surgeons have spoken to Newsbeat about how they feel.

Hannah, who studies at St George's University of London, says: "A lot of the reasons the NHS might not be flourishing as the government would want seems to be being blamed on us.

"The way to engage and retain staff is to work with us, not against us."

Newsbeat contacted the Department of Health for a comment. A spokesperson directed us back to Mr Hunt's speech on the government's website.

In it, Mr Hunt says hospitals "that have instituted seven-day working have seen staff morale transformed as a result".

Hannah: We already have an emergency medical system in this country that is 24 hours a day, seven days a week

Stella Dilke who is a trainee surgeon and is a representative for other surgeons at her level in London, says the real problem is the lack of other staff at the weekend, not the lack of senior doctors.

She thinks what Mr Hunt is saying is "inappropriate and exceedingly short-sighted" and "rubbish".

Stella

"I've never worked in any hospital when consultants haven't been in at the weekend and seen all their patients," she says.

"I've worked for the last three weekends in a row and my consultant has rounded [come on rounds of the wards] every day on all of these weekends.

Not all NHS staff are angry with Jeremy Hunt: this picture was posted on his Twitter account

"I've been assisting in operations, I've performed a couple myself and without senior input none of these things would have been able to happen.

"The biggest problems about weekend coverage is that you don't have things like MRI scans working because you don't have enough staff.

"You have a reduced number of nursing staff due to budget cutbacks. There have always been reduced staff, radiographers, and porters at the weekends so things happen a lot more slowly. If Mr Hunt is honest about having a seven-day NHS the real problem isn't with doctors not being there, the problem is with lots of additional staff not being there."

Lots of staff are needed at the weekends, not just consultants

She compares performing an operation to flying a plane: for the plane to take off, you don't just need a pilot, you need all the other staff that support that process.

"If you factor in the extra 50 or so people you need in an average-sized hospital to run these services, you're talking about billions of extra pounds a year, but that's a more complicated argument to stomach," she adds.

Doctors don't usually make a fuss, according to Stella.

"Doctors don't ever strike because professional obligation to your patients means most medics find it ethically abhorrent.

"We don't speak out often. We need to put patient confidentiality first, so there can't be any anecdotal evidence talked about. The amount of people publishing letters and speaking out on social media over the weekend is unprecedented. You don't often read accounts by doctors who are still doctors. Doctors spend a lot of time working, they aren't the type of people who hold a placard and march outside parliament."

After a hashtag #ImInWorkJeremy went viral at the weekend with doctors saying they were working, Jeremy Hunt even tweeted himself using the hashtag.

Mr Hunt says the Labour government gave "consultants the right to opt out of working at weekends - that's a right that nurses don't have, midwives don't have, paramedics, ambulance drivers and so on don't have and that has created a Monday to Friday culture in many parts of the NHS with tragic consequences for patients".

Dr Jon Hilton, who graduated a year ago, says Mr Hunt is not talking "nonsense", but he would still like to look at what evidence the government has that lack of doctors are the issue.

"If it is because of a lack of consultants then of course we need more of them, but when I have been working at weekends what I see a lack of is the rest of the general staff."

He gives the example of the pharmacy at his hospital, which shuts at midday at weekends.

"If you need any extra tablets you have to get the pharmacist to come in from home, which is a bit awkward.

"I would say to the average patient, those people make more of a difference than a consultant. The people that are unwell enough to need a consultant at the weekends, get one, in my experience."

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