If one doctor had not been moved from a day shift there would have been a single junior doctor covering 436 patients overnight LYNNE CAMERON/PATwo junior doctors had sole responsibility for 436 patients because of staff shortages in the NHS, a report has said. The research, sent to the board of Plymouth Hospitals NHS trust in July, said that patients had been left at risk during a “very unsafe shift” at Derriford Hospital. It also warned that one of the two doctors was moved from a day shift in breast surgery because there would have been only one doctor left to cover the entire night shift. The report highlighted that such a discrepancy could become more frequent with plans to reduce medical cover so that two doctors routinely cover 450 patients. One of the junior doctors said that he had been “pulled from breast surgery day job at 11am…

Source: The Times September 17, 2017 23:48 UTC