Hospital consultants are expected to seek talks with health employers after they meet today to discuss this week's settlement with accident & emergency nurses.
The nurses' work-to-rule in A&E departments was suspended from 8 a.m. yesterday for five weeks to allow local hospital committees to be set up to address queueing and other issues in the departments.
Both the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association and the Irish Medical Organisation have warned that any new arrangements must respect the contractual obligation of consultants to their patients.
In particular, they say, only the patient's consultant must decide when he or she is fit to be sent home.
The Irish Medical Organisation has already sought a meeting with the Health Service Employers' Agency on the issue, and the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association is expected to make a similar request today.
General practitioners will be included in the IMO team at the talks.
They are seeking clarification of the consequences for them of any plan which would see a quicker return of patients to the community.
Nursing unions have said they do not envisage any change in the right of consultants to decide on when their patients will be discharged.
However, they will be seeking an agreement, through the local committees, that when a certain number of emergency patients has been waiting for beds for a certain number of hours, the bed manager will be able to cancel enough planned admissions to meet the demand.
Doctors and hospital managers as well as nurses will be represented on the local committees.