UK's Health Service Director Vows to Fight Poor Performance on Weekends

NHS medical director promised to address the issue of poor performance in hospitals during weekends, after a report came out stating that patients hospitalized on weekends face a 15-percent greater risk of dying compared to those who were admitted during a workday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS) performance drops significantly over the weekend and its national medical director wants to reverse the trend, the Telegraph reported Sunday.

"Everybody knows that it's wrong to start winding down on a Friday afternoon and start cranking up again on a Monday morning," Bruce Keogh was quoted as saying in an interview with the publication.

Keogh is expected to address the NHS Pay Review panel this week over the service's "moral, professional and societal duty" to uphold the quality of care 24/7.

The Pay Review Body report has found that patients hospitalized over the weekend faced a 15-percent greater risk of dying within a month as compared to those admitted during a workday.

"Patients who have experience of both weekday and weekend admissions to hospital report that everything 'goes quiet'," the study, published in mid-January, read.

Keogh has pledged to put the NHS on a round-the-clock footing by 2017, according to the publication, since similar studies released earlier showed a chasm between weekday and weekend services.

"I will be asking the pay review bodies to look at that," he was quoted as saying.

The National Health Service (NHS) is a free of charge clinical-need healthcare system operating throughout the United Kingdom, established following World War II.

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