Trainee doctors ‘run A&ES with no support’

PATIENT safety is being put at risk because inexperienced doctors are left to man accident and emergency units without support from senior colleagues, the medical regulator has said.

Trainees at NHS hospitals have to “fend for themselves” in A&E and other units, according to the General Medical Council (GMC).

Trainee doctors are being asked to treat patients and make decisions beyond their abilities, creating “very clear risks to patients from doctors who may not know what they’re doing”, Charlie Massey, the chief executive of the GMC, told the Guardian.

In one instance, a foundation-year doctor called three times for help from senior colleagues while she was working in the resuscitation unit, but received no support and had to make decisions herself, the GMC’S survey found. In another A&E department, junior doctors were said to be displaying symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Last year, a Daily Telegraph investigation found that A&E departments were being run with no consultants present for more than 40 per cent of the time.

In some units, the most senior person on duty was a junior doctor who had only finished medical school the year before, Freedom of Information data showed.