WHEN he took over as Health Secretary, Darlington MP Alan Milburn likened the task of transforming the NHS to turning round a super tanker.

After decades of underfunding, it could not be done overnight. He had a point, of course, although that hasn't stopped us from being impatient for improvements.

It is not just simply about providing additional funding. Cutting waiting times for life-saving treatments such as heart bypass surgery is taking time because of difficulties in finding and training new specialists.

For the same reasons, it was never going to be easy to meet European directives to limit the number of hours being worked by junior doctors.

The excessive workloads of junior doctors has been one of the scandals in the NHS. They are supposed to be there to learn but all too often they have been the sticking plaster holding the service together.

When excessive hours are worked, in whatever discipline, there has to be an increased risk of human error. It is, therefore, right to work towards an initial maximum of 58 hours because it is in the interests of the profession, the service, and the patients.

Polls show that around 16 per cent of health trusts - including several in our region - have been unable, due to a shortage of doctors, to meet last night's deadline for the new limit to be introduced.

As difficult as it may be, the pressure has to be maintained to ensure that those remaining trusts are brought into line as soon as possible.

For while these intolerable workloads continue, the next generation of health service professionals face burn-out, trusts are in jeopardy of massive compensation claims, and patients are being placed at risk.