IHCA: Consultants’ duties unmanageable
As many as 90% of hospital consultants believe their current workload is unmanageable while 60% believe that their patients’ care is suffering as a result.
That is according to the Irish Hospital Consultant Association (IHCA) which has surveyed more than 900 of its members on the impact of what it describes as the current consultant recruitment and retention crisis.
Dr Donal O’Hanlon, IHCA president, said more than half (54%) of respondents agreed that due to excessive workload the number of inpatients that they are expected to provide care to is more than the recommended norm for their specialty, with this exceeding two thirds of the respondents (67%) for outpatient care.
The survey also found:
“It is abundantly clear that our acute hospital and mental health services will increasingly fail our patients due to the 500 approved permanent consultant posts that cannot be filled because the Government has not restored pay parity for consultants appointed since 2012 unlike other public servants,” said Dr O’Hanlon.
“As a consequence of the vacant posts, the vast majority of consultants are working in excess of their contracted hours, with over three quarters doing so ‘often’ or ‘very often’.”
