NHS efficiency and quality threatened by cuts to consultants' protected time, new BMA publication warns

The NHS will struggle to protect quality and find efficiency savings if cuts to the protected time senior doctors can devote to the improvement of services continue, the BMA says today.

A new BMA publication, Quality Time, highlights the importance of consultants’ Supporting Professional Activities (SPAs) – protected time for work such as the development of new services, research, safety audits and training. It features 21 consultants from across the UK who have used their SPA time to take forward initiatives that have improved the quality of patient care, frequently saving the NHS money.

All the doctors in Quality Time say their achievements would have been either impossible or less likely without protected time. However, although the model NHS contract for consultants states that their working week should typically include ten hours of SPA time, there have been widespread cuts. Over a fifth (21%) of consultants surveyed by the BMA earlier this year said the number of SPAs in their job plan had been reduced. More than one in seven (15.1%) said their employer had reduced the standard number of SPAs for all consultants, and almost a quarter (23.8%) said their employer had reduced SPAs for newly appointed consultants.