Continuity of care and the European working time directive: a maxillofacial perspective

The European Working Time Directive (EWTD) was introduced in 1993 and was heralded as both a challenge and an opportunity for the NHS to modernize its services Continuity of care is usually viewed as the ongoing relationship between a patient and a single practitioner. Fragmentation of this continuity by many doctors being involved in a patient's management may weaken this relationship. The effect of the EWTD on junior doctors training in various specialities is well studied, we however were interested to assess the effect of the EWTD on the patient-doctor relationship in a maxillofacial setting and aimed for this paper to serve as an indicator of current practice and facilitate future research in this area. Seventy-five consecutive patients were studied with 72 patient proformas analysed. Our findings show greater same consultant patient contact than that of the specialist registrars and senior house officers. We feel that this is largely due to new work patterns introduced through the advent of the EWTD.