The EU’s Working Time Directive (EWTD) is causing large-scale damage to the medical profession in Britain, non-aligned medical practitioners’ pressure group Remedy UK has warned.

In a special report issued to discuss the effects of a year’s implementation of the EU’s directive, Remedy UK said it appeared that “doctors are voting with their feet and starting to abandon ship.”

According to the pressure group, which consists of medical practitioners working for reform in the NHS, the number of doctors from Foundation Year who have walked out of a career in the NHS as a result of the EWTD has reached 23 percent of the total.

“Figures presented to the Medical Programme Board show that of the 6,000 doctors completing Foundation training, a substantial number (around 23 percent) have simply not applied for a job in Core Training,” Remedy UK said.

“About 7 percent of those who did apply and were successfully appointed, then went on to turn the post down. Their destination is unknown.  Word on the ground is that the doctors are taking a ‘gap year’ -- often abroad.

“And maybe even more worrying is that finding that almost 1300 of the 6000 applicants (22 percent) did not receive an offer at all. The Programme Board seem genuinely puzzled by this, unable to understand why it is happening, and have ordered an urgent enquiry,” the pressure group continued.

“Can they be serious? The 48-hour week isn’t just the elephant in the room, it is a herd of them, and the Temple review which was hastily ordered by the last government turned out to be a monumental dud that has been studiously avoided.

 “Remedy calls on the new government to wield their axe. Those leaders within medicine who led us into the mess need to be replaced with others who can lead us out of it. We need to find a way to reverse the EWTD changes at the earliest available opportunity,” Remedy UK said.

In a separate statement to the media, Remedy UK founder Matthew Shaw said that the “European Working Time Directive has completely changed the shift patterns of junior doctors and they no longer feel part of a team, under the guidance of a senior consultant.

“In the past, consultants would play a bigger role in their trainees' development but under the new shift pattern they barely see them.

“Junior doctors are working a majority of night shifts and even though they are working fewer hours it has adversely affected their quality of life.”

Remedy UK’s position was backed up by British Medical Association’s Gordon Fletcher, who confirmed that there had been “problems round the country with shift patterns brought in by the EU Working Time Directive which has led to junior doctors working more night shifts.

“They also often have to carry out a lot of bureaucratic and admin tasks such as chasing up results from the lab as the staff who would normally do this aren't around,” Mr Fletcher was quoted as saying.

Another report by the Royal College of Physicians also warned that the 48-hour week rule had led to doctors caring for an average of 400 patients a night, rather than just 60 during the day.