Even the larger than life comedian Peter Kay might struggle with a stand up routine based on EWTD. However, the award winning funny man from the north west could claim one similarity with the Directive - his tour dates usually sell out in 48 hours!
In case he needed briefing on the acronym, Dr Debbie Kendall, project director, NHS North West junior doctor advisory team, came up with her own suggestions during the lifetime of the 'struggle'. (Well, she and her colleagues did once dub themselves ‘Freedom Fighters for Junior Doctors’ - and dressed the part!) Take your pick from:
Elvis Was The Dean
Everyone Will Toboggan Downhill
Earwigs Wander Through Dirt
Even Wackier Than Deans
Every Week Trainees Doodle
Everyone Wonders (what) They Do
Not all those involved in implementation over the last decade were quite so forthcoming when asked to recall a funny story. Their responses ranged from 'all my examples are libellous' to 'I cannot recall one humorous moment'.
They included one 'good luck' message, with the rider that writing this piece would be like 'spinning gold from straw.' Despite the pessimism of many, here are some anecdotes designed to raise a smile.
Yasmin Ahmed-Little, the former project director of the EWTD team in the north west, recalls being heavily pregnant with her second child in the summer of 2004 as she worked hard on the implementation of change agenda.
"I like to think that people were far more prepared to accept my suggestions on compliant solutions for fear of inducing labour with any kind of challenge or upset!,” says Yasmin, whose son, born in August 2004, became known as the ‘EWTD baby’.
“It’s a somewhat extreme method which you won’t find in the text books - and you have to be very devoted to compliance to go to such lengths!” says Yasmin, now a member of the chief medical officer’s clinical advisers scheme at NHS North West.
Extremes were often the order of the day in many respects and the subsequent basis of black humour. Like the 32 hour duty meeting; bizarrely the same number of hours worked by Spanish doctors in primary care teams cited in the infamous SiMAP ruling, which Tim Lund, EWTD national lead for Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team endured in his role within the DH. It consisted of 14 hours of negotiations sandwiched between flights to Brussels and meetings in England.
Tim also recalls arriving at the German Ministry of Labour offices in Berlin with representatives from the UK Department of Trade and Industry and the UK attachÈ to the German Embassy on September 12th, 2005 to try to gain support for more flexibility within the EWTD to support surgical trainees.
“Before we started formal proceedings, the German interpreter suddenly stood up and said in English: ‘The score is 100 for 4’. Puzzled faces all round on the German side of the table.
“What they didn’t know was that it was the final day of the final Test Match at The Oval and England could win The Ashes. He suddenly followed it with: ‘Cricket is the new football’. It was hilarious.”
Only when they returned to Berlin airport did the UK team learn that England had indeed won the Ashes - for the first time since 1987. It was just one of thousands of endless meetings, whose location and timing were often arranged to try to suit the audience.
Neil Sellen, senior workforce consultant at NHS East of England, recalls travelling the country to different trusts where a meeting with junior doctors, to glean their views on rotas and Working Time, was always scheduled.
“These were usually arranged for lunchtimes because we were assured that the promise of a free lunch would be enticing and it was the only time they were free,” says Neil. “Between interviews we would spend time in the canteen, usually surrounded by the said junior doctors, up to 15 or so at a time, most just shooting the breeze and waiting for their pagers to go off.”
Come the appointed meeting time, Neil and his colleagues returned to the designated room, waited for ten minutes when “in would rush a harassed looking JD, either the mess president or the BMA rep, with hasty apologies.
“They would say: ‘Terribly sorry, really busy today, don’t think any of the others can get away from their ward duties and I’ve got to go in ten minutes because my consultant needs me’.”
When the delegation returned to the canteen, guess what? “The JDs would still be there and once, the BMA rep followed us in to join her colleagues, spotted us and did a volte-face. We laughed... silently.”
Then there was the meeting which was never a meeting. As the medical adviser to the EWTD team in the north west, Omar Najim faced great reluctance by hospital HR departments to discuss the issues.
Armed with new data and anxious to meet a deadline in December 2007, he decided to visit one HR department personally, giving them little notice.
“I called first when I was at the hospital to be told that they were in a meeting, which would last all day,” says Omar, now a Fellow of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. “I decided to go to their offices anyway and could see people in there. I knocked and they refused to let me in because they were in a meeting. But I could clearly see there was no meeting.”
He phoned his then boss, who called the department and asked - no, told them - to open the door. “It was ridiculous, but funny looking back,” he says.
Diana Hamilton-Fairley, deputy medical director of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust recalls being likened to ‘the general’ by a senior consultant who initially was totally opposed to plans to take away trainees from one of two specialties which they had historically covered.
“After a very heated discussion, the consultant returned to the next meeting to declare: ‘I have decided that Diana is the general and I am prepared to follow her in to battle - but I hope to God we are in the right war!’
“Everyone looked stunned. It was a fantastic turnaround and he proceeded to revolutionise his service which is now EWTD compliant.”
"EWTD baby is doing well on all this stress!"
"I decided to go to their offices anyway and could see people in there... They refused to let me in because they were
in a meeting. But I could clearly see there was no meeting!"
Working Time Directive 2009 
