Select Committee on European Union Ninth Report


ABSTRACT


ABSTRACT

This Report is designed to contribute to a European Commission review of the Working Time Directive, as well as focussing attention on the Directive in the House and elsewhere.

The key issues in the review are:

  • The voluntary individual opt-out from the 48-hour working week.
    We say this should be kept: it offers the flexibility which employers need in meeting global competitive challenges, and is particularly suitable for British circumstances. It also preserves the right of those who want or need to work overtime.

  • Two European Court judgments about hospital doctors' resident on-call duties. One (SiMAP) holds that all on-call time should be treated as working time, even when the doctors are able to sleep. Complying with this by August 2004, as required, will be impossible for the NHS.

  • We say more time is needed to work out a common-sense compromise that improves doctors' working conditions without putting standards of patient care at risk or harming medical training.

  • The other (Jaeger) holds that doctors are entitled to immediate compensatory rest after resident on-call duties, even if they have been able to rest. We say this interpretation is perverse and completely impractical. We call for urgent action to get it changed.





 
previous page contents next page

House of Lords home page Parliament home page House of Commons home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2004