Rise in hospital deaths at weekend

Hospitals death risk increase

No one wants to hear that they're more likely to die if they visit a hospital at the weekend. It's shocking for patients, but also for the doctors on duty who will face more pressure. But according to new research, there is a rise in hospital deaths over the weekend.

The new study is the largest ever to look at the differences between weekend and weekday mortality, focusing on the deaths of patients admitted as emergencies to 163 acute hospital trusts in England during 2005/06.

The figures showed that hospital patients in England are much more likely to die if they are admitted to a hospital over the weekend, rather than on a week day.

It's believed that a reliance on junior doctors as well as a lack of specialist services over the weekend period, are two reasons that are being cited to explain why the death rate at hospitals across England increased by seven percent at weekends over the 2005-06 period, research from the Dr. Foster Unit and the Department of Acute Medicine at Imperial College London found, reports Nursing Times.

3,369 more hospital deaths

The study found that the seven percent rise equates to 3,369 more deaths than would have been expected during weekday hours.

Dr. Paul Aylin, senior author of the Dr. Foster Unit at Imperial College London said: "Staffing levels are often lower at weekends, with fewer senior medical staff around, and some specialist services are less available. We believe this may be contributing to the increase in mortality rates on Saturdays and Sundays but we would like to see more research.

"Hospitals have been reassessing the working hours and rotas of their doctors and, considering the impact that staff availability may be having on mortality rates, this is a timely reminder to hospitals that they must take care not to jeopardise the quality and standard of patient care available at weekends when devising new staffing rotas."

The findings add further weight to a separate report published recently which found that the NHS was "too reliant" on junior doctors who are often left to work unsupervised on wards overnight and at weekends.

Some older consultants are reluctant to work later hours and prefer to stick to a standard week, which affects trainees, according to the review's author, Professor Sir John Temple.

In a critical study of the way consultants organise their workloads, Sir John said the service would need to be redesigned so consultants work more flexibly and are more "directly responsible" for patient care around the clock.

Sir John said that the need for junior doctors to 'fill gaps' in rotas meant that they did not have enough time with senior staff for training, resulting in inexperienced staff working without sufficient training during unsocial hours.

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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