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.