Civil servants must be made to earn the privilege of working from home
sir – The eight organisations I’ve worked for in my career all offered a contract of employment, specifying the address at which I would be based.
Either civil servants do not have similar contracts, or their managers have ignored the rules and let employees choose where they work from (Editorial Comment, May 21).
Flexibility and a “work/life balance” are laudable goals, but they must be secondary to the efficient delivery of government services to the public.
Would it not be reasonable to mandate that all civil servants will be based at the office defined in their employment contract unless a specific condition is consistently met?
Employees could be allowed flexibility on where they work only when predefined performance benchmarks are met and customers are happy with the service they are getting. Garry Curran
Crowthorne, Berkshire
sir – Some government departments, such as the Office of the Public
Guardian, admit they are five months behind because staff have been working from home (Report, May 20). Yet others claim that homeworking has not affected employees’ work rates. Can someone explain this dichotomy? Bob Salmon
Greetham, Rutland
sir – Two recent letters (May 20) made me reflect on my 40 years on the wards.
The disequilibrium in the work/life balance is thought to be related to “burn out” in junior doctors and is used to explain the early departure of so many from the profession.
Burn out, in my opinion, is more related to the lack of support and absence of collegiate working in modern medical and surgical practice.
Doing phone appointments, paperwork and professional development at home has become increasingly common among consultants. Conducting virtual ward rounds will be the final nail in the coffin of the old hierarchy that has all but disappeared from hospitals.
Junior doctors need support from both their peers and senior colleagues, which is best delivered not online but face-to-face in hospitals.
Medics have always needed resilience and determination. They will need even more in the lonely, isolated virtual practice of the future. John Skipper FRCS
London SW19
sir – While it is technically possible in some specialities for consultants to do parts of the job from home, if you can do it from your home, somebody else could do it from theirs – possibly in a different country and for less money.
Be careful what you wish for. Hilary Aitken
Retired consultant anaesthetist and former BMA representative Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire
sir – So the police don’t want to work, politicians don’t want to work and civil servants definitely don’t want to work. W G Stafford
Trudoxhill, Somerset