Junior doctors spread disease

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 23 Aug 2003 - 0:00 PDT

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Junior hospital doctors (UK) spread infection because they fail to take time off when sick, new research suggests.

A report in Occupational and Environmental Medicine concludes that work pressures among junior medical staff prevents them taking sick leave

Hospital acquired infections, brought on by treatment or contact with staff, are estimated to cost the NHS in England over £985 million every year.

The authors base their findings on a survey of junior doctors at a large London teaching hospital originally carried out in 1993 and repeated in 2001.

Of the 110 respondents, over two thirds had had at least one bout of infectious illness in the preceding six months, including diarrhoea and/or vomiting, urinary tract or skin infections.

Overall, the proportion of doctors opting to remain at work though illness fell between the two surveys, but almost two thirds of doctors were still not taking sick leave

These findings contrasted starkly with doctors' views of whether sick leave was required. In 2001 almost all doctors said that that vomiting/diarrhoea warranted sick leave, while most doctors in both years felt that urinary and skin infections did so.

'It is clear that a number of issues need to be addressed if junior doctors are not to present an infectious risk to their patients, including provision of cover for sick doctors and measures to encourage use of the occupational health system,' the authors conclude.

Reference: Perkin M et al (2003) Do junior doctors take sick leave? Occup Environ Med 60: 8; 699-700