The government’s assertions on weekend mortality in hospitals are bold & unsupported, says David Locke, but there may be a real issue about patient harm
It is axiomatic that as soon as an argument becomes politicised, the facts are lost among the rhetoric. Never has this been truer than with the current discourse concerning the new junior doctor contract.
Misreading the statistics
From a medico-legal perspective, the debate has opened up an interesting area of discussion in relation to the statistics surrounding weekend mortality. Much of the controversy arises from the frequently misquoted paper produced by various luminaries, including Bruce Keough, the National Medical Director, and published in the British Medical Journal in September 2015 (BMJ 2015; 351: h4596). The paper was entitled, “Increased mortality associated with weekend hospital admission: a case for expanded 7 day services?”. The all-important question-mark notwithstanding, one wonders whether with the benefit of hindsight an alternative title might have been preferred.
The paper has been wrongly cited as providing statistical evidence that weekend staffing levels are directly attributable to increased patient mortality, and that improved staffing facilitated through the new junior doctors
