12.01.12
EU laws ‘risking patient safety’ – RCS and RCP
EU laws are putting NHS patients at risk, with the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) limiting the time trainees can work and foreign doctors having poor language skills, the heads of two royal colleges argue.
Professor Norman Williams, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Sir Richard Thompson, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, said: “The language competency of doctors from the EU working in Britain, and the stifling effect of the European working time directive on the time that trainee doctors have to learn on the job, need urgent action.
“EU laws that apply to all sectors can have unintended consequences in healthcare that can put patients at risk, whether inBritainor other member states.
“The increased mobility of health professionals in the EU has highlighted huge variations both in the practical abilities of professionals of similar grades, and in the systems set up to ensure quality, in different member states.”
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “We agree that for too long patients have been let down by European rules which allowed doctors to operate in theUKwithout the necessary safeguards.
“That’s why I announced last year new rules on checking doctors’ language skills and new powers to take action against doctors who can’t speak English properly.
“We want to revise the EWTD to give the NHS the flexibility it needs on training. Our overriding concern must be to protect patients.”
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