Healthcare training - Professionals should pay not taxpayer

The Health Service Executive is no longer funding healthcare professionals to carry out mandatory training, because the HSE is seeking to cut its costs in the current exceptional economic circumstances.

Hitherto healthcare professionals such as social workers, occupational therapists and physiotherapists were provided with free continuing professional development (CDP).

Of course, there is no such thing as free training. Somebody always has to pay for it. Should it be the professionals, who are in most cases well paid for their work, or should it be the ordinary taxpayer? The Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists (ISCP) notes that its members are going to have to fund their own training. It is a condition of membership of the ISCP that physiotherapists must undertake a minimum number of hours training annually to remain in tune with clinical advancements. Such CPD is also a legal requirement under new EU rules.

In most walks of life people have to fund their own continuing education. It is not as if the State should assume that task because those people are going to provide their services free to the taxpayer. Ultimately the taxpayer will pay for the services received.

Some of the courses can cost from €150 to €700 a day. When the taxpayer was paying, there was little incentive to keep costs down. In most instances members of their own profession provide the training. Hence those who pay the bills will not only have a stake in the whole process but also a monetary interest in ensuring there is value for money.

Irish physiotherapists and occupational therapists have been indicating they will not attend an international conference being hosted by the Central Remedial Clinic in September, because their attendance is not being funded. This was to present a CPD opportunity for professionals, but a spokesperson for the clinic complained that a low attendance by Irish practitioners will not present a good international image.

Surely this should be about much more than mere image. It is being made to sound like one of those junkets staged for local councillors as an excuse to claim expenses. Such extravagance should never have been allowed in the first place, so cutting these things out now and demanding that more people accept responsibility for spending should be a welcome development.

Where expenses are incurred for CPD, this should naturally be subject to tax relief. Ultimately, taxpayers will gain by ensuring that those who claim the tax relief will have had a direct interest in ensuring that they were getting value for their money.