How protective is the working time directive?

Editor—The headache of working conditions continues, as MacDonald shows in her editorial on the European Working Time Directive.¹ I left the United Kingdom just before the banding pay scale was introduced. This came into effect after the junior doctors' section of the BMA had had the wind knocked out of its sails in trying to get a different outcome from its campaign at the time.

The United Kingdom will always have these problems so long as juniors are paid a salary that does not truly reflect the hours and conditions worked. In Australia doctors are paid an hourly rate that increases if 40 hours is exceeded and during unsociable hours, weekends, and public holidays. Every effort is made to keep the hours to around 40 a week.

Money talks. If the same rules applied in the United Kingdom it would put a much greater pressure on reducing the hours doctors worked and thus lead to compliance with the European Directive.