First non-medic to chair doctors’ regulatory body

FOR the first time ever, a person who is neither a doctor nor a member of the Medical Council, will chair a committee of the regulatory body for the medical profession.

She is Ann Maher, who will end 10 years as chief executive of the Pensions Board tomorrow after a distinguished career in the public service.

Ms Maher, who has a law degree from University College Dublin, is to be the first chair of the council’s performance committee that will play a key role in new competence assurance measures for doctors.

Her appointment is timely because the implementation of the Medical Practitioners Bill will move plans by the Medical Council to introduce competence assurance from a voluntary basis to a statutory one.

Ms Maher is a board member of the Irish Accounting and Auditing Supervisory Authority, the Health Insurance Authority and the British-based Professional Oversight Board.

She is also a member of the FTSE Policy Group, a governor of the Pensions Policy Group, both based in Britain and a member of the EU Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors.

The eight-member performance committee will oversee the processes to determine the standards that doctors and specialists must meet which have already been introduced on a pilot basis.

The remainder of the committee will be appointed over the coming weeks and will include patient representatives, those involved in the assessment procedures for doctors, representatives of the medical profession, other professions allied to medicine and representatives of those responsible for the education and training of doctors.

Chair of the council’s competence assurance committee, Dr Colm Quigley, welcomed Ms Maher’s appointment and said she would have his full support in her role.