THE IRISH Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has decided to finally recommend to its members that they accept the new contact of employment being offered by health service management.
The national council of the IHCA took the unexpected decision on Saturday following a high-level early morning meeting with the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Scanlan, and the chief executive of the Health Service Executive, Prof Brendan Drumm.
The meeting was convened at short notice after the IHCA indicated on Friday it would recommend rejection of the new contracts on offer because they claimed they failed to reflect in full the deal reached in principle with employers on new work practices back in January.
Donal Duffy, assistant secretary general of the IHCA, said it was acknowledged at the early morning meeting that what the HSE had put down on paper to date did not fully reflect the January agreement. It was also agreed that the HSE "was committed to setting that to right over the next week", he said.
As a result the IHCA decided to recommend to its members that they accept the new contract, which will see consultants working exclusively in the public sector earning salaries of €240,000 a year. Higher salaries for academic consultants have not yet been agreed but it is hoped this difficulty can be ironed out before members are balloted on the new contracts. Balloting will commence on Monday next, April 28th, and will conclude on Friday May 10th.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said she welcomed the IHCA decision and looked forward to working with consultants to deliver the substantial improvements in services to patients that the new contact will allow.
Under the new contracts consultants will be rostered to work in teams around the clock. They will be rostered over a longer working day from 8am to 8pm and for up to five hours on Saturdays and Sundays.
The HSE also welcomed the IHCA's decision to recommend the new consultants contract, over which negotiations have dragged on for four years. Prof Brendan Drumm said the new contract was "good for patients and good for consultants".
Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), which represents a smaller number of hospital consultants, decided on Saturday that it was too soon to ballot members on the new contracts. Its director of industrial relations, Fintan Hourihan, said the union would need all amendments to the contract in writing before it could ballot members. "We are not prepared to recommend acceptance or to arrange a ballot based on verbal assurances," he said.
He said the IMO did not believe the final elements of the contract, over which there was still disagreement, could be sorted out in face-to-face talks with the HSE and the union now wanted somebody to be appointed as a mediator between the sides.
He indicated if a mediator was appointed it should be possible to bring the entire issue of a revised contract for consultants to a conclusion very soon. A new contact for hospital consultants is seen as one of the main building blocks of the Government's health service reform programme.