ABSTRACT
The European Working Time Directive has placed great pressure on arrangements for medical cover within UK hospitals. In 2002, the National Health Service (NHS) Changing Workforce Programme at the Department of Health established 19 pilot projects to address the mandatory reduction in junior doctors’ workload to 56 hours a week, scheduled to take effect in August 2004. One such project, the Perioperative Specialist Practitioner (PSP), pilots a new professional role that aims to expand the surgical team by providing patients with integrated care before and after an operation. The goal of integrated care is to provide patients with a stable relationship with a single PSP throughout their stay in hospital, rather than a fragmented series of contacts with different healthcare workers. PSPs will assume many of the diagnostic and procedural responsibilities currently carried out by junior doctors.
