Bernard Allen
Ceist:561 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children the steps he has taken to introduce manpower reform arising from the manpower reform report. [22062/01]
Written Answers. - Hospital Doctors.
Bernard Allen
Ceist:599 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will make a statement on recent reports (details supplied) that the Irish Medical Organisation had rejected outright his Department's plan to establish a 94-member task force on non-consultant hospital doctors' hours and consultant staffing. [22101/01]
Bernard Allen
Ceist:600 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children if he proposes to establish a tightly focused task oriented junior hospital doctor task force to oversee the reduction of junior hospital doctor working hours. [22102/01]
Bernard Allen
Ceist:610 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children the way in which he proposes to set up medical manpower working groups within each hospital to progress interim measures to reduce junior hospital doctors' working hours, as proposed by the national task force on medical manpower. [22112/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 561, 599, 600 and 610 together.
As the Deputy will be aware, the Government, in April this year, published the report of the forum on medical manpower and the report of the national joint steering group on the working hours of non-consultant hospital doctors, NCHDs, and also approved the establishment of a national task force on medical manpower to prepare a detailed implementation programme for the phased reduction of the working hours of NCHDs, required under the EU working time directive – Council Directive 93/104/EC and 2000/34/EC. The Government also decided that it would consider the proposed development of a consultant-delivered public hospital service following quantification of the resource and cost implications involved.
Officials of my Department, in consultation with Mr. David Hanly, independent chairperson of the national task force on medical manpower, have been working on the draft terms of reference and working structures of the task force over the summer months, and it is envisaged that the task force will hold its inaugural meeting shortly.
There is no proposal to establish a 94-person task force. What is proposed is the establishment of a steering group to co-ordinate the work of the task force and to oversee the work of three project groups which will address non-consultant hospital doctor working hours; resource and cost quantification; and medical education and training implications.
The steering group and the project groups are likely to have approximately 20 to 25 members each. While overall membership of the task force will be somewhat large, numbering some 70 individuals in total, this is necessary given the importance of the issues involved, both to provide appropriate representation to all the relevant stakeholders and to facilitate rapid progress through a structure of project groups which will work on a programme of priority issues in a parallel format. I am confident that this approach is the most appropriate and will yield rapid results.
I am aware, however, of certain reservations in this regard and I will consider these before reaching a final decision on the most appropriate structures for the task force.