The survey reinforces the urgent need for more consultants and more trainees to cope with these pressures

Dr Hugh Mather, survey co-author

Less than half said job satisfaction was good (38%) or excellent (6%).

Consultants were asked to list their three most pressing concerns.

In order of importance these were listed as: increasing intensity of workload, not enough trainees/trainee hours and decreasing quality/lack of continuity of patient care.

The workload increase has been partly due to more acute admissions and partly due to the decrease in trainee doctors' hours of work.

Finding locum cover for staff shortages is difficult - with 91% of physicians reporting difficulty in obtaining locums within the past year, compared to 65% in the 1999 survey.

Extra staff

Survey co-author Dr Hugh Mather said: "This survey shows a worrying loss of morale among physicians throughout the UK, which they attribute to their excessive workload, resulting from increasing numbers of acute admissions and the reduced support from trainees because of their reduced working hours.

"This might lead to problems in recruiting sufficient young, talented doctors to become the next generation of consultant physicians.

"The survey reinforces the urgent need for more consultants and more trainees to cope with these pressures, as has been repeatedly emphasised by the RCP in recent years."

Consultants said they wanted the RCP to have bolder, more vociferous dealings with politicians and to campaign vigorously for more consultants and doctors in all grades.

RCP president Professor Sir George Alberti said: "The results are indeed disturbing.

"Many of the problems will however diminish with the forecasted substantial increase in consultant numbers, but before then there is a difficult period to overcome in the next two to three years."