IHCA calls on Minister Harris to urgently address the appointment of non-specialist doctors to specialist consultant posts as it is compromising patient safety and care
Sunday, 15th April 2018: The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has called on Minister Harris to urgently address the appointment of non-specialist doctors to specialist consultant posts as it is compromising patient safety and care.
Dr Tom Ryan, IHCA President, said: “It is a year since the IHCA expressed its serious concern that an increasing number of specialist consultant posts are being filled by doctors who are not eligible to be on the Medical Council’s Specialist Register.” Today, Dr Ryan repeated his concerns that this practice violates the most basic professional standards within the health services and he has called on Mr Simon Harris, Minister for Health to address the issue urgently.
Dr Tom Ryan said that the much greater scale of the problem, as confirmed in today’s Sunday Business Post article, is an appalling reflection on our health policy. He has called on Minister Harris to immediately end the practice of appointing doctors who are not on the specialist register to work as Specialist Consultants in our health services. It is not acceptable that doctors who do not have the essential specialist training, skills and expertise are treating patients as Specialist Consultants in our acute health services. This compromises and undermines the quality and safety of care that is provided to patients in our hospitals. The crisis in the recruitment and retention of consultants should not and cannot be resolved at the expense of patient safety.”
Dr Ryan said that the State and health service employers have been persistently and blatantly in breach of the 2008 Consultant Contract over the past decade and this is the root cause of the problem. Their actions have caused a prolonged and deepening Hospital Consultant recruitment and retention crisis in our acute hospital and mental health services. This together with the discriminatory terms the State imposed on new entrant hospital consultants since 2012 are the irrefutable reasons why the Irish health service has become uncompetitive in recruiting and retaining the number and calibre of consultants that are required to provide timely high quality care to patients.
The IHCA President said that the large number of non-specialists practising in specialist consultant posts and the fact that 15% of the approved consultant posts in our acute services are unfilled on a permanent basis represent a ‘’wakeup call’’ for the government.
Dr Ryan said that the State’s decisions to breach contract terms entered into with consultants in 2008 and the discrimination against new entrant consultants represent costly errors. Those decisions represent a false economy that must be ended without delay as patients are being deprived of care while health service agency costs total €115 million per year. To plug the expanding gaps in consultant staffing, the State and our hospitals are paying multiples of the official salaries for temporary and agency consultants. Dr Ryan said that the only sustainable solution is to honour the 2008 Consultant Contract and end the discrimination against consultants who are highly sought after and valued in other countries.
ENDS
For further information contact:
James Dunny, FleishmanHillard 086 388 3903