I have already given Philip some information on the effect of 24/7 working at the N&N and will not repeat it here. He has a point. I suspect we should all agree that it is illogical to claim one adds value but that all queries that might arrive can be adequately handled within 'office' hours. The question is, given the shortfall in 'senior' staff how do we provide adequate cover while being able to retain sanity, see our families etc.

I have just negotiated remote access to the LIS, although have yet to receive the hardware so cannot comment on the usefulness of this in practice. We scan request forms which allows us to view them on our terminals but we shall need the scanning process to be made more efficient if we are to use this data to comment properly on urgent requests.

Much more of a problem has been the interface with GPs. They produce nearly half our work and an increasing number of cases requiring urgent attention are being seen. Unfortunately a significant proportion of these are identified outside 'normal' working hours. We have, I believe, a duty to act in a timely manner but often we find ourselves talking to a deputising service with no access to the patient's notes. This is particularly worrying when we are not even given an address so that it is impossible for the patient to be contacted.

Trevor Tickner,

Norwich

-----Original Message-----
From: Wills Philip (Queen Elizabeth Hospital NHS Trust) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28 November 2003 10:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject:

Many thanks for those replies to my original letter some of which I feel missed my point.Yes,of course the three of us cover 9 (or earlier) to 7 (or later) on site 5 days a week ,Saturdays on site,and all the hours outside the laboratory normal working hours on the end of a phone without any recognition/remuneration/time off etc. etc. and also telephone cover for absent colleagues in neighbouring hospitals.This seems to be most people's experience and I am sure there are many worse-off people out there.

The point I was making was the qualitative nature of cover to be provided in 24/7.I was thinking of the numerous enquiries during the current working day ranging from "what specimen" to rather more esoteric queries which it may not be possible to handle from home because we do not have access to the hospital information system.In other words, if our BMS colleagues in the lab. are providing the same repertoire of service at 2 am as it does at 2 pm,then maybe the expectations of our profession will be assumed to be available 24/7 without any thought or negotiation.We do not wish to be disenfranchised because 3 of us cannot offer day-time type of service 168 hours a week.As a profession,we should meet this problem head-on before it hits us first.

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