Sorry, I jumped the gun. But what is the end point of putting more doctors in weekends? Are you trying to improve emergency services or routine services?
- We have a robust NHS emergency service out of hours.
- There is room to improve non-urgent but necessary procedures, however this requires increase in auxilliary staff. E.g. if I want to perform more endoscopies in a weekend, I will require more receptionists, porters, endoscopy, cleaning and laboratory staff. The new contract changes nothing as there is already an on call doctor capable of doing this procedure at any given time of day. There is no money to recruit the additional staff to carry out this procedure however.
- There is room to improve routine services. However, this would require massive funding boosts to recruit more staff in every facet of a hospital. More doctors alone will achieve nothing. You need additional social care, receptionists, security, transport, porters, HCAs, nurses, physios, OTs, pharmacists, theatre staff, laboratory staff. There is simply no money to do this and it is unfeasible.