Vol. 505 No. 5
79 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Health and Children when the doctors common contract was introduced; when the contract was last reviewed; the principle contained in the contract; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13711/99]
The common contract for consultant medical staff was introduced on 1 April 1981. Prior to the introduction of the common contract consultants were, broadly speaking, remunerated under two separate and distinctly different systems of remuneration. In the case of health board appointments, consultants were usually permanent and pensionable employees who were remunerated on a salary basis with limited rights to private practice. In the voluntary hospitals, sessional payments and salaries were sometimes paid to non-clinical consultants but clinical consultants were usually remunerated by way of daily capitation rates which went into a hospital "pool" to be divided up by the consultants concerned.
The notion of a contract arose from a series of reports which all referred to the need to introduce standard conditions and rates of payments as well as the Government's decision to extend free hospital care to all sections of the population. A working party on a common contract and common selection procedure for consultants was established in December 1977. It was from the interim report of this committee that the common contract emerged following negotiations between management and staff representatives.
The contract was last reviewed in detail by the review body on higher remuneration in its report to the Minister for Finance on hospital consultants – report No. 36. Following lengthy negotiations between the management and representatives of the medical consultants a new contract was introduced with effect from 1 January 1998. The remuneration rates referred to in that report were updated by the same review body's report No. 37 which dealt generally with higher level remuneration in the public service.
