Mr Hughes said that planned changes in rotas would have no benefit to patients.
However, Bev Clarke of the Royal College of Nursing said the system was poorly suited to hospital rotas.
He said alongside training up more staff, London Midland had restructured its rotas to make them more efficient.
The Department of Health has already issued advice stating that rotas with seven consecutive night shifts should be avoided.
Train drivers' union Aslef said it agreed to the changes in rotas to "free up drivers to cover services".
BBC: London Midland timetable changes tackle driver shortage
Guernsey's public bus drivers could strike on Monday due to changes to their rotas made by operator CT Plus.
Professor Roy Pounder, the RCP lead on the European Working Time Directive said rotas which included seven 13-hour shifts were "clearly not sensible".
Figures from April this year showed 46% of junior doctors were on rotas which would be unlikely to comply with the new rules.
"For too long we have been trying to to cover rotas of doctors which spread the time and attention of these key doctors too thinly, " he said.
Overtime and unsocial hours payments will also be cut to time-plus-30% while work on negotiations on new work rotas and other changes by September 2011 is to continue.
Supermarket giant Tesco appointed 1, 900 "World Cup Champions" with responsibilities which include organising flexible rotas so staff could watch the games, and communicating all match fixtures and in-store World Cup related activities to colleagues.
"We will continue to assess the impact of our new staff rotas, put in place to better match demand, and to see the improvement which we expect to see from that, " an EMAS spokesman added.
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