UEMS EBA Workforce, Working conditions, Welfare Standing Committee
Chairperson: Ioana Grigoras (Romania)
WWW standing committee covers aspects of the work of Anaesthesiologists related to:
- Workforce e.g. staffing and workload
- Working conditions e.g. working hours, night duties
- Welfare e.g. stress, bullying, substance abuse etc
- Assistance to the anaesthesiologist
FATIGUE PROJECT
Dear EBA representative,
As already discussed during our recent EBA meetings, the EBA Workforce, Working Conditions and Welfare Standing Committee initiated the FATIGUE PROJECT in order to assess the magnitude of this issue among European anaesthesiologists, to raise awareness and to call for action to prevent and mitigate fatigue.
Many anaesthetists and intensive care doctors work long hours both during the day and overnight. Working when very tired affects patient safety as well as our own safety and wellbeing. It is also a factor in stress and burnout. However, there are some relatively simple things we can do to improve our own and our patient’s safety. Some of these may be more feasible now, when the impact of Covid-19 has raised the issue of staff wellbeing.
The EBA WWW Committee, the ESAIC Trainee Committee and EJD Association, working together as a joint project team developed 2 surveys, one for anaesthesiologist (licensed/board certified) and one for trainees in Anaesthesiology. The surveys aim to find out the extent of the problem in every European country and to raise awareness of the issue. We hope to use the results to educate colleagues, managers and politicians about the impacts of fatigue and to make improvements to our working conditions and wellbeing.
In order to achieve a significant number of responders from each European country, we would like to ask you to disseminate the survey links to anaesthesiologists (licensed/board certified or trainee) in your country in the way you think is the most likely to achieve a high response rate (via the national society of Anaesthesiology, the College of Physicians, or through other channels). Please, do translate the survey into your own language if you think this will lead to a higher response rate. The trainee survey is available in 3 languages - you change the language at the top right of the page. The higher the response rate the more likely we will be able to use the data to do something about fatigue.
The links to the surveys are:
- for licensed/board certified anaesthesiologists:
https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/ConsultantFatigueSurvey
- for trainees:
https://www.surveymonkey.de/r/TraineeFatigueSurvey
In order to raise awareness and to give simple solutions, we provide the link to the Fight Fatigue project, initiated by the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and supported by the Royal College of Anaesthetists, which released a set of educational material on this issue.
Please let us know if any work is being done in your own country on fatigue and its impact on patient and staff safety and wellbeing.
Your support is crucial for the success of this EBA project. Thank you in advance!
EBA president
Olegs Sabelnikovs
WWW Standing Committee chair
Ioana Grigoras
Fatigue group leader
Nancy Redfern
