Private practice rights suspended over failure to reduce private work to an acceptable level, writes MARTIN WALL
FOR THE first time, a senior hospital doctor has paid money generated from excess levels of private practice into a hospital research and study fund under the provisions for sanctions set out in the consultants’ contract.
The consultant concerned is one of two senior doctors in the southern half of the country, who had private practice rights removed last year by the HSE as part of a row over the extent of their private practice work.
Informed sources suggested that the consultant has paid about €6,000 to the research fund.
Depending on their type of contract, consultants working in public hospitals with private practice rights can see either a maximum of 20 or 30 per cent of fee-paying patients.
Over the past year or so, the HSE argued that a number of consultants were not in compliance with the terms of the public-private mix in their new contract.
However, for some time the Irish Hospital Consultants Association has challenged the methodology used by the HSE in calculating the level of private practice. It has said the system adopted by management in the health service is “fundamentally flawed”.
Minister for Health James Reilly told the Dáil last week that last year health service employers had undertaken a detailed engagement with 32 consultants whose private practice accounted for 50 per cent or more of their activity. He said in these cases matters had been resolved.
However, in addition to this the HSE suspended the private practice rights of two consultants who did not reduce their private ratio to an acceptable level, he said.
“In line with the terms of the contract, one of these consultants has remitted the excess private fee income into a research and study fund in the hospital concerned. The HSE is now moving to address a further group of consultants, those identified as engaging in excess of 40 per cent private practice.”
Dr Reilly said the HSE had engaged with the medical unions and individual consultants to pursue the issue of compliance, with a particular focus on consultants who are significantly in breach of their permitted ratio.
He said there had been a significant improvement in the level of compliance with the private practice rules.
The HSE said that under data protection rules it could not identify the consultants from whom it had withdrawn private practice rights.