Regulator criticised over delays in recognising qualifications

Esther Mary D’Arcy, professional adviser with the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, said “there are consistent delays” with recognising qualifications.

Health regulator CORU has come in for criticism over its waiting times after it emerged that a health practitioner has been waiting almost a year for their qualifications to be recognised.

A qualified Irish physiotherapist, returning to Ireland from Britain where they attained their degree at one of that country’s leading sports-science universities, told the Irish Examinerthey have been waiting since January for their qualification to be recognised by CORU, having initially made contact with the organisation in September 2022.

Recognition of such a qualification from a foreign educational institution is a rigorous process, and in most cases precedes the ascent to the official register for each professional field.

Both processes must be undergone before someone coming to Ireland from abroad can practice here.

“It’s an absolute mess,” they said. 

“The process is completely opaque. I started applying in September, and no one got back to me for months. I got my stuff in, I asked for updates. I wasn’t checking every week, but no one was responding.”

The physio in question has been fortunate in that a part-time position they had taken up while waiting for their recognition to be processed has turned into a full-time role.

“It would have been scary if that job hadn’t come up,” they said. 

It's incredibly frustrating, I’m not an undergraduate, I’ve worked with international-class athletes. By any measure, I’m excelling in my field, yet this process is incredibly protracted.

“I can prove definitively that I’m excellent at what I do, but my degree isn’t recognised. It’s prevented me from applying for jobs that I’m qualified for,” they said.

A spokesperson for CORU said that there are “no extended waiting times for the recognition of a qualification”, adding that a typical waiting period “might extend up to an average of 16 weeks”.

“Any extended waits usually stem from applicants providing incomplete information,” they said.

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Some 965 applications were received by CORU for international recognition in the first six months of 2023 across sectors, they said, adding that “resources are added to the teams at peak application times to ensure prompt processing of applications”.

Esther-Mary D’Arcy, professional adviser with the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, said however that “there are consistent delays”.

“We’re seeing this quite a bit. We’re concerned from the point of view of the patients,” she said. 

“We have the worst recruitment crisis in the history of the profession, practices are screaming for staff. I understand CORU has to be thorough, but it’s the length of time that’s taking that is the problem. If it’s a capacity issue then they need to bring in more staff.”

“We absolutely recognise the remit of CORU to protect the public, but we also have a responsibility to the public in that people need physiotherapy, and those that need it should be getting it,” Ms D’Arcy said.