Harney wants ‘flexibility’ from consultants

HOSPITAL consultants will have to be ready to accept public only contracts if the Health Service is to meet public patients’ needs, Tánaiste Mary Harney has said.

Speaking at the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) annual general meeting, the Minister for Health said “flexibility” and “not rigidity” was vital to look after the public’s needs.

She said a variety of contracts, such as public only, private only and public/private, were needed and confirmed she wanted contract talks to examine the introduction of a ‘public only’ contract in the early years of a consultants career.

Promising “huge increases in consultant numbers” so a consultant-provided service could be provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she called for focused negotiation, saying she hoped the contract talks would not “go on for ever.”

It was agreed on Friday evening the Health Department Health and hospital consultants would immediately begin talks on a new contract, seen as pivotal to health service reform.

The Tánaiste also revealed in Galway that this year’s Estimates would have a strong emphasis on caring for the elderly in the community and on rehabilitation services so acute hospital beds could be freed up.

“We need to reconfigure what we have at the moment. We need to have people discharged quicker and we won’t have more acute beds just for the sake of it,” she warned.

IHCA president Josh Keaveny had earlier called on the minister to deliver the 3,000 beds promised in the Health Strategy saying “acute bed numbers are at the heart of the problems within the health service.”

He told said if Ireland was in line with the EU average, the health service would have 5,500 more beds.

He also criticised the Government for attempt “for political reasons ... to “load all the ills of the health service on the consultants contract.”

Ms Harney denied she was engaging in a blame game and called hospital consultants the main executives within the health service and leaders.

She said she was very aware of the lack of consultants in the regions and referred to a recent visit to Limerick where she was taken aback at their needs. She said she would address this. The Tánaiste added that pay and performance had to be linked when deciding where to invest in the health services.