The staffing returns made by health agencies in the health service personnel census each year only identify numbers within a particular grade. The identification of staffing requirements and the deployment of staff within the overall financial and employment levels set by my Department is a matter for the management of each health agency. Therefore, it is not possible to identify the number of dieticians working in any particular discipline.
Because of the nature of their work, dieticians are involved in an interdisciplinary capacity with many different specialities within the health service. The composition of these teams depends on the particular needs of the service being provided by the agency concerned and the response which the agencies management and professionals consider appropriate, having taken the circumstances presented to them into account.
I can provide the number of dieticians, dietician, senior dietician, principal I dietician and principal II dietician by heath board area, both full-time, wholetime equivalences, excluding career breaks, and part-time employed on 31 December 1998, the latest date for which complete information is available. The health service personnel census as on 31 December 1999 is currently under way.
Dicticians