Shortage of senior doctors at MidCentral DHB

4 November 2016

Survey identifies shortage of senior doctors at MidCentral DHB

A survey of clinical leaders at MidCentral District Health Board has identified a significant shortage of hospital specialists.

ASMS Executive Director Ian Powell says the survey of heads of departments at MidCentral was carried out in May as part of a broader research project to understand staffing levels at selected district health boards.

“We’re trying to get the best available information on the number of senior doctors needed to provide safe, good quality health care to patients, including patients who need treatment but can’t access it,” says Mr Powell.

“What we can see increasingly clearly is that senior doctors are working shorthanded and as a result are under a lot of pressure to do more with less. This is not a sustainable situation for them and obviously not satisfactory for the many patients who struggle to see a specialist when they need to.”

A full report of the MidCentral DHB survey findings are available on the ASMS website at (http://www.asms.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Research-Brief-MidCentral-staffing-survey_166818.3.pdf).

Of the 32 HoDs invited to participate in the survey, 28 responded (an 87.5%) response rate.

Key findings:

• Just one of the hospital departments (rheumatology) indicated there was adequate SMO FTE for their service at the time of the survey.

• Overall, an estimated additional 41.1 FTEs – or 27.3% of the current SMO staffing level surveyed – were required to provide safe, quality and timely health care at the time of the survey.

• The estimated additional FTEs required above current staffing levels ranged from 5% to 200%.

• Despite the estimated 41.1 FTE staffing shortfall, there were only 7.6 FTE vacancies at the time of the survey.

• An estimated 57% of SMOs are ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ able to access the recommended level of non-clinical time (30% of hours worked) to undertake duties such as quality assurance activities, supervision and mentoring, and education and training, as well as their own ongoing professional development and continuing medical education.

• More than half of the HoD respondents believed there was inadequate internal SMO cover for training and mentoring, short-term sick leave, annual leave and continuing medical education leave.

• Nearly two-thirds of the HoD respondents believed there was inadequate access to locums or additional staff to cover for long-term leave.

• Nearly half of the HoD respondents believed their staff had inadequate time to spend with patients and their families to provide good quality patient centred care.

Mr Powell says ASMS is discussing the findings with senior managers at MidCentral DHB.

ENDS

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