Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many junior doctors have chosen to opt out of the Working Time Regulations through provisions included in their contracts.

This information is not held centrally by the Department and is a matter for individual National Health Service trusts.

The provisions of the new 2016 contract for doctors and dentists in training include contractual limits on working hours that go beyond those in the Working Time Regulations.

Where a junior doctor voluntarily chooses to opt out of the Working Time Regulations average weekly limit of 48 hours, the contract provides that hours are restricted to a maximum average of 56 hours per week, across all or any organisations with whom the doctor is contracted to work or otherwise chooses to work. A doctor opting out of the Working Time Regulations weekly hours limit is still bound by all of the other limits set out in the Regulations and in the contract.

Doctors who choose to opt out must give written notice to their employer. The contract requires that records of such agreements must be kept and be made available to relevant recognised unions and appropriate regulators on request.