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A YOUNG doctor’s car crash death was yesterday blamed on “inhumane” working hours on Scotland’s wards.

Dr Lauren Connelly died just days before her 24th birthday as she drove home from a night shift.

One colleague said last night: “If Lauren had gone into law, architecture or accountancy – anything but medicine – she would still be alive today. That’s the truth of it.”

It is feared Lauren fell asleep at the wheel before her car veered off the M8 near Bishopton, Renfrewshire, and crashed down an embankment at 9.40am.

Yesterday, colleagues and friends said the popular doctor’s death must spark an overhaul of gruelling shift patterns in place at Scotland’s hospitals.

Lauren had just come off duty at Inverclyde Royal Hospital before she died but friends say she had previously voiced concerns over tiredness caused by her working hours.

Doctors say hospital rotas can mean juniors working 14-hour night shifts for up to 12 straight days.

But Inverclyde yesterday strongly denied that Lauren’s death could be linked to her rota pattern or that she had worked back-to-back shifts before the accident.

But one colleague at Inverclyde said doctors’ hours are a critical issue at every hospital in Scotland.

The doctor explained: “I was told Lauren had been on the first shift of a stretch of nights but the rotas are relentless.

“You can be working nights for a stretch, then a couple of days and then be back into nights.

“At the end of that, you are running on empty. You should be nowhere near a car. Or a patient.

“No other profession endures rotas like it, certainly not one where your decisions can mean the difference between life and death.”

Junior doctors will hold crisis talks later this month with health bosses to discuss Lauren’s death.

Tom Dolphin, chairman of the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee, said: “The tragic death of Dr Connelly has raised the problems of junior doctors. It is a high priority problem and one which we will be raising with employers.

“It is a major issue and Dr Connelly’s case has brought it to the fore. We will be raising this with employers and discussing what measures they feel they can commit to.

“A lot of junior doctors are working seven nights in a row for 12 or 13 hours shifts. It is bad not only for the doctors but for their patients as well.

“Sleep deprivation affects people’s ability to solve problems. This could affect a doctor’s ability to administer medicine, for example.

“Doctors are made to work to inhumane rotas which do not take into account normal human sleep patterns and the human body’s physiological need for sleep.”

Doctors have increasingly been forced to work full-time shifts up to seven nights in a row instead of traditional on-call rotas, following the introduction of new European guidelines on working hours.

Dr Dolphin added hospitals have been closing rest rooms for doctors since they believe staff on full-shift rotas should not be sleeping while on duty.

It is understood one of Lauren’s colleagues contacted Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie after the crash to complain that rest facilities for staff at Inverclyde had been closed.

Dumbarton MSP Baillie said yesterday: “We need to be acutely aware that the intensity of a junior doctor’s job and the demands of doing several shifts in a row may take a severe toll on their wellbeing.

“When the health board makes cuts to sleeping accomodation for staff at the hospital, it only makes tragedies such as this more likely.

“We have to look at this national issue before we ask junior staff to work prolonged hours without breaks.”

Lauren, from East Kilbride, was newly qualified and had only recently taken up a post at Inverclyde Royal.

Surgeon Tom Berry, of the BMA Scotland junior doctors committee, said: “We are aware of Dr Connelly’s case. The BMA are concerned about the hours worked by junior doctors and the way rotas are put together.

“It is not that unusual to work seven night shifts in a row. I have done it and it is draining and unlike anything else I have experienced.

“Doctors and management have to work together to create rotas that use common sense.

“One solution would be to split the night shifts – doing three shifts one week, then four the next to break things up a bit.

“Studies show that fatigue affects a person’s ability to make judgment calls and their reaction times. A lot of rest rooms have been closed so there is nowhere for someone to go to relax even at the end of their shift.”

A survey of 1619 junior doctors by the Royal College of Physicians in 2006 discovered that one in six had a road traffic accident when driving to or from work.

Bosses have to deliver an average working week of 48 hours for junior doctors but weeks can add up to 60, 70 or 80 hours, with occasional shorter weeks.

One junior doctor who works in the Glasgow area said: “Staff like Lauren would be working up to 12 consecutive days on shifts lasting between eight and 13 hours without a break.

“You have to ask – are these bright, gifted young people being exploited and abused?

“These are idealistic and enthusiastic young doctors who want to do good deeds but no one protects them. It is not only six years of medical training but potentially 40 years of service that have been lost in Lauren’s case.”

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said they were unable to detail Lauren’s shift patterns.

But she added: “We are extremely dismayed by the linking of the tragic death of Dr Connelly to a range of wider issues relating to the working hours for junior doctors.

“It is both distressing and wrong for them to use Dr Connelly’s death in the context of wider issues.”

A police spokeswoman said an investigation into the crash on Saturday 17 September was ongoing but there were no other vehicles involved.

Yesterday, at the family home in East Kilbride, Lauren’s dad Andrew declined to comment on the tragedy.

We risk our lives ... and our patients

HERE, a doctor at a major Scots hospital reveals his fear that long hours can lead to errors and tragedy.

If doctors working these kinds of shifts say they have never given themselves a fright driving home, then they have either been very lucky or are not telling the whole truth.

I used to drive home through towns rather than on the motorway because I thought it kept me more alert. The other thing is that doctors are driving all across the Central Belt to get to work.

You will have people driving to and from Glasgow, Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Stirling when they should be nowhere near a car.

You kid yourself that you’re fine but it can only take 10 minutes of motorway monotony to start feeling drowsy.

I have driven into the verge a couple of times and the rumble strip woke me. Another time, I clipped a kerb.

Doctors are at risk and anyone else on the road is at risk.

People hear about an average working week of 48 hours but that gives no idea of the reality for most hospital doctors.

Every hospital is slightly different but you could be doing a week of 12-hour night shifts then flip into a couple of day shifts and then another night.

Because the shifts are jumping about, your body clock is all over the place. By the end of it, you’re like a zombie.

Eventually you will get a lighter week to bring your average down but that is the exception.

How it affects your work is another issue altogether. You try not to think about how the shifts affect your decision-making about patients but everyone knows it must.