Doctors say they are not ready yet to sign up to Hanly

PLANS to reduce junior doctor working hours and change the way consultants serve public hospitals have hit a major hurdle — just days after a blueprint for health service reform was published.

The Irish Medical Organisation, which represents junior or non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs), says it would not yet sign up to the Hanly Report, which had yet to be discussed by the IMO’s speciality committees.

It has also announced it would not enter into Labour Relations Commission (LRC) talks aimed at reducing NCHD working hours until controversial rosters imposed without agreement in a dozen hospitals were scrapped. It had earlier been agreed that LRC talks would begin once the Hanly report was published.

Consultants said the changes proposed in their work had not been agreed with their representative body, the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association (IHCA).

They said its members would have to consider it and would not be “bounced” into negotiations.

Consultants will hold a series of meetings on the report, beginning with the national council on November 8 and continuing in the mid-west and east coast areas on November 11 and 12.

Warning bells first sounded last Wednesday when the Health Service Employers Agency (HSEA) contacted the IMO urging it into talks to reduce NCHD working hours, as set out in the European Working Time Directive.

The Hanly Report was published the same day. Some NCHDs work up to 90 hours a week and it is proposed that these be cut to 48.

Both sides had been due to return to the LRC for talks which originally took place last year following NCHD strikes in two hospitals over a rostering row. It had been agreed, however, that further LRC talks should await publication of the Hanly Report.

IMO Chief Executive George McNeice said they had no objection per se to going to the LRC. However, rosters which had not been agreed with the organisation would have to be scrapped. And he added that they would get nowhere without proper funding.

“We will agree to enter talks when these rosters are revoked and returned to a nine-to-five basis.

“We have no difficulty entering talks on the 48-hour week once it is agreed to implement the 2000 NCHD agreement and the original agreed rosters are restored, and once our NCHD committee has discussed the implications of Hanly Report,” Mr McNeice said in an interview with the Irish Medical News.

He added that some of the new NCHD rosters produced in the Hanly Report did not appear to be “family-friendly” in terms of the variation in hours proposed from week to week.

Meanwhile, the IHCA has warned that proposals on the way consultants should work in the future were never agreed and that its members would have to consider the report in detail before being lured into negotiations.

“It will take us some time to finalise our position,” said IHCA secretary general Finbarr Fitzpatrick. “We will have to get the views of our members before we can sign off on anything. Certain aspects of what is proposed will require political as well as medical decisions to be made.

“We haven’t yet got down to pre-conditions for negotiations with the HSEA or others,” Mr Fitzpatrick added.

The Department of Health said it anticipated that talks would get underway soon and added that it was not seeking any exemption from the European directive. “We are just focusing on getting the job done,” a spokesperson said.