Most of us, who work hard during the week, like to put our feet up at the weekend. It appears that the NHS also enjoys some downtime. The Today programme on Radio 4 reported that patients were more likely to die if they were admitted at a weekend rather than mid-week. The programme referred to a study published in the Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine. The research covered 14 million hospital admissions and looked at 187,300 patients who died within 30 days of admission. The study found that admission on a Sunday was associated with the highest risk and mid week admissions with the lowest risk of death.
Of course seriously ill patients are more likely to be admitted at a weekend whilst less seriously ill patients may have their admission deferred to a weekday.
This research supports the view, formed by my colleagues and me, in the clinical negligence department that low staff levels, lack of access to diagnostic investigations and less supervision by senior medical staff over the weekends all contribute to avoidable poor patient outcomes whether or not the patient actually dies.
I hope that lessons can be learned from this research and the NHS encouraged to provide a round the clock service seven days a week. In the meantime if you are unfortunate enough to fall ill try to time your sickness and admission to hospital between Tuesday and Thursday!
