Nurses take on doctors' jobs

Doctors hours will be reduced by August 2004

Nurses at a Devon hospital have been given extra government money to take on more of the work traditionally done by doctors.

Staff at North Devon District Hospital are piloting a scheme to help reduce the number of hours doctors work because of European Union working regulations.

Hospital managers said that nurses are keen to look at new roles and the development benefits patients and staff alike.

Hospitals say there is a need to redistribute work

By August 2004, European Union regulations mean doctors' hours must be cut to no more than 48 a week.

At the moment, some work up to 72 hours.

Nurses are being given more power to admit patients to hospital, send them for diagnostic tests and even discharge them from hospital and send them home when they have recovered from their illness.

The pilot scheme, one of 19 similar schemes, is due to last for 15 months and is being closely monitored by the Department of Health.

"Some of the work they were doing already," said Moses Warburton, the hospital's divisional general manager of medicine and critical services.

"But it is a development that benefits a lot of people.

"It allows doctors to do more diagnostics, it allows nurses to improve what they do and it improves the service to the patient most of all."

If the scheme works well in Devon, it could be adopted across the country.