A wide ranging report into the manpower needs of the hospital services has indicated sweeping changes in the way consultants and hospital doctors do their jobs. The report of the Medical Manpower Forum recommends that over 650 more consultants be employed, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. It highlights the fact that the service is hugely reliant on poorly trained junior doctors.
The Forum has taken two years to produce this report, and the group representing doctors, administrators and hospitals was faced with finding solutions to the problem of a shortage of consultants, and an over reliance on untrained junior doctors.
They also had to find solutions to the issues of poor career structure for hospital doctors, problems with out-of-hours cover, and difficulties with medical cover in Accident and Emergency services. This report compares the Irish system with the Scottish one, and indicates that the 1,200 consultant posts could be increased by at least 650. This will mean better quality patient care for the public.
The Forum agreed that patient care should be delivered by fully trained doctors, which is not the case at present. In order to do this, consultants will be required to work more flexible hours including evenings and weekends.