Grievances: The Government's prospects of speedily negotiating a new contract with hospital consultants faces fresh difficulties following a warning from the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) that a whole series of outstanding grievances would have to be prioritised before any progress could be made on a new deal.
Long-awaited talks on a new contract are due to start on Thursday. However, the new move could lead to further wrangling between the Government and the main medical representative bodies.
Talks on a new contract have already been delayed for more than a year because of the row over insurance cover for hospital consultants.
The Government believes that changes to the consultant's common contract are absolutely central to its overall healthcare reform plans. Last September, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen specifically criticised hospital consultants for holding up change in the health sector by refusing to negotiate on a new contract.
However, in a letter to the Health Service Executive Employers Agency, the IMO has set out for the Government a list of outstanding grievances which, it maintains, "must be prioritised before there can be any progress made on the revision of the common contract".
Among the issues highlighted by the IMO are: disciplinary procedures for hospital consultants; pension arrangements for consultants returning from abroad to take up positions in Ireland; and the failure of the Health Service Executive to apply a 7.5 per cent pay increase awarded to consultants by the Committee on Higher Remuneration in the public service last July to their on-call and call-out payments.
In his letter, the IMO's director of industrial relations, Fintan Hourihan, also expressed strong concern over what doctors have seen as attempts by the Department of Health in recent weeks to remove private practice rights from consultants working in accident and emergency departments.
He also criticised the Government's threat to withhold from consultant psychiatrists a forthcoming 1.5 per cent pay rise due under the Sustaining Progress Agreement, if they continue to oppose recruitment to the planned mental health tribunals.
"We stated that we were prepared to engage in discussions in good faith on the basis that the serious concerns we had highlighted are addressed satisfactorily. Unfortunately, in the interim, the Department of Health and Children/HSE has instigated a further breach of the common contract in interfering with the right to private practice of consultants in emergency medicine.
"Secondly, the Department is now threatening to withhold payment of Sustaining Progress increases from consultant psychiatrists who are being asked to take on extra contractual duties and who have been engaged in ongoing and constructive discussions with the Department of Health and Children on the many issues that need to be addressed to ensure that Part 2 of the Mental Health Act 2001 can be implemented without compromising existing mental health services."
In its position paper for the new contract talks, the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive are expected to seek new arrangements under which some consultants would work only in the public sector and without any private practice.
