Thank God it’s Friday
The Guardian covers a BMJ story about the negative impact of ill-thought out shift patterns for medics. I have said a lot about this before.
Dr Ahmed-Little wrote: “It (the RCP) suggests limiting consecutive night shifts to a maximum of four and reducing the duration of shifts in order to decrease the risk to patients and staff.
“Single night shifts are safest, but more doctors would be required to support such rotas, which is unlikely to be affordable. Shift working is likely to increase further as junior doctors’ working hours are reduced to a maximum of 48 hours per week by 2009.
“Without an evidence-based approach to the implementation of such large scale changes, there is a real danger of adding new, unknown risks and perhaps even worsening the status quo.”
The article goes on to recommend changes.
Dr Ahmed-Little said evidence-based approaches to shift rostering showed that shifts are better tolerated when they rapidly rotate in a clockwise manner - that is, they change every few days in a morning, afternoon, then night pattern.
Though I am not too sure about the evidence behind this claim.
The ongoing battle to take control iSoft gets a mention in the Times with a suggestion that only McKesson & IBA Health are left in the running with private equity in the form of General Atlantic Partners having been excluded. Apparently the talks have stalled while both bidders continue to negotiate with CSC which subcontracts the NHS work to iSoft. McKesson talks have faltered while it tries to renegotiate parts of the NHS contract; IBA would need a large rights issue to fund any bid.