Report claims doctors need time off to sleep

Hospital medical and surgical residents should not work longer than 16 hours without going to bed for a five-hour sleep break, experts have claimed.

A panel at the Institute of Medicine also claimed that if doctors do not get enough sleep they have a higher risk of making errors, which could result in poor patient care.

Michael Johns, a physician and the chancellor of Emory University in the US, led the panel.

He said that "residents often work long hours without rest and regular time off".

Therefore it has been recommended that medical residents receive one full day off a week and at least two back-to-back days off a month.

It is hoped that these moves could improve the quality of the care provided to patients.

Research in 1996 found that paediatric residents who slept less then three hours a night on average were twice as likely to have car accidents as others who did not have sleep-deprived nights, the Washington Post reports.

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