A UKIP MEP has responded to the Government’s announcement that the Working Time Directive wasn’t working.

The Government said it would be asking trainee medics to voluntarily opt-out of the EU’s working time directive, that limits employees to a 48 hour week.

Louise Bours, North West UKIP Euro-MP said: “For years, both UKIP and the medical profession have been telling successive governments that the working time directive is putting patients at risk, and leaving new medics feeling under-trained.

“But because they didn’t like the facts, the establishment turned a deaf ear.

“Now so many of the senior medics are backing us up, the coalition has been forced to respond.”

Since it was brought in under Labour, doctors training to be surgeons have warned that the rules mean they have lost 3,000 hours of training time by the time they qualify, the equivalent of 128 working days.

Ms Bours, who studied for her degree at University Centre at Blackburn College, added: “We went into the 2010 General Election saying the one-size fits all approach of the EU and the WTD is bad for patients and trainee doctors.”