Ms Shirley Coulter:

My apologies. The suggestion is that they were staying longer than they should have. The issue is what they should be doing. They must stay as long as a service requirement exists. As Dr. Murphy remarked, hospital services are provided on a 24 hour, seven day basis. I cannot say that my roster ends at 5 p.m. and therefore I am simply going home at that stage. The patient still needs to be seen and taken care of. Often, this is why NCHDs stay beyond the roster. There is an anomaly in NCHD working lives relating to unrostered hours and the Chairman referred to a relevant situation in Cork. These hours are unrostered because the roster is not appropriate to the actual working day. The roster is based on coming in at 9 a.m. and finishing at 5 p.m. but that is not how the service is delivered. A ward round might start at 8 a.m. or there might be a team meeting starting at 7 a.m. or a clinic may be meant to finish at 5 p.m. but it may not finish until 6 p.m or 7 p.m. These hours are classified as unrostered. They are inevitably crossed off when people claim them but the NCHDs are absolutely required to be there. They are there at the behest of the employer and they are there to provide a service.