'Bored' gynaecologist blasts NHS

David Penman says he is ready and willing to see patients

A gynaecologist at a Kent hospital has said he is being left to "twiddle his thumbs" and do crosswords because his hospital cannot afford more surgery.

David Penman claims non-urgent surgery is being postponed at the Medway Maritime Hospital because there is not enough money for this financial year.

He says public money is being wasted at the hospital, which has a £1m deficit.

The Medway NHS Trust has admitted there is an overspend but has said it is still focused on cutting waiting lists.

'Completely unnecessary'

But Mr Penman said appointments had been shunted into the next financial year, by as much as 20 weeks in some cases, in order to reduce the overspend, while doctors, nurses and theatre teams were standing around doing nothing.

He said: "What do you do while you wait for the next person to turn up when there should be three in the gap between two patients? Sit and read the paper, drink coffee - while we're paid, when we could be seeing patients.

"It's very distressing, and it's completely unnecessary as far as I can see. I'm sitting there ready, willing and able to see patients."

Mr Penman said he had "come to the end of his tether" and could not imagine that he would be willing to work for the NHS for very much longer.

The Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham is in the red by £1m

But the chief executive of the Medway NHS Trust expressed surprise that anyone was "twiddling their thumbs" as there was always "plenty of work to be done by clinicians".

Andy Horne said if Mr Penman had spoken to him, he probably could have been found some extra work.

Mr Horne said: "All the staff are working very hard to reduce waiting times and waiting lists. We've been very successful at it over the last two or three years.

"In gynaecology we are still having to run extra lists in order to make sure that we keep to those government targets."