What do palliative medicine consultants do?

A workload study of consultants in palliative medicine was carried out, in which a task inventory questionnaire was sent to the consultant members of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland. The median number of hours per week worked by a palliative medicine consultant was 49.5 (mean 51.3), excluding time on-call and breaks. The median consultant first on-call roat is 1:3. Palliative medicine consultants work a median of 22.5 direct clinical and 4.5 indirect clinical hours per week. This is very similar to the hours worked by consultants in other specialties who work an average 51.3 h per week, but with a median on-call rota of 1:6. Further studies are planned to monitor the patterns of consultant activity and workload in this specialty.