Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 October 2012
637. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Minister for Health if he will provide details of consultants employed by the Health Service Executive South who are not partaking in seeing public patients but continue to see patients privately; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44343/12]
View answerMedical Consultants employed in the public health service are contractually obliged to treat public patients.
Consultant Contract 2008 limits private practice for newly-appointed consultants on a Type B or C contract to 20% of activity. The upper limit for consultants who held a contract prior to 2008 is 30%. The HSE has put in place arrangements to measure consultants' private practice and to pursue issues of compliance where necessary. The Contract provides for a series of steps to be taken where a consultant exceeds the level of private practice permitted in his or her contract. The 1997 Consultants Contract also limits the extent to which consultants can engage in private practice.
The Health Service Executive has advised that it recently examined a case where it had been alleged that a consultant in the HSE South was exclusively treating private patients. The HSE is satisfied, having considered the matter, that the consultant in question was on a career break at the time and was not in breach of the terms of the career break scheme.
