THE MEDICAL Council has said it is “extremely concerned” about doctors from other EU countries working in Ireland who may not have the right language or clinical skills to do their jobs effectively.
The council wrote to the Department of Health in recent weeks as part of a lobbying campaign to amend EU law to enable closer scrutiny of doctors coming from other EU states.
Council president Prof Kieran Murphy said yesterday EU legislation prohibited it from assessing the English language competencies or clinical skills of doctors who qualify in the EU. In contrast, all non-EU doctors must sit a pre-registration exam, which assesses clinical and language skills, before they can join the council’s register.
“This is a huge concern for the council as we can’t assess doctors’ competencies and we see joining the register of medical practitioners as a hallmark of quality,” said Prof Murphy at the launch of the council’s 2009 annual report.
He said the council had told the HSE about its concerns and held talks with the British Medical Council, which faces similar difficulties in assessing EU doctors.
The HSE said last night there were 2,500 foreign national doctors working in the HSE, but could not say how many came from other EU states. It said it had proposed to the council in recent weeks that a language competency test be applied to all doctors seeking to work in Ireland, regardless of their country of origin.
The council has taken steps to address the difficulties it faces in assessing EU doctors’ competencies by making them sign a declaration affirming he or she has the necessary English language skills; alerting employers that they must satisfy themselves about doctors’ language skills; introducing a rigorous assessment of each doctor’s application to the council’s register and making it explicit in the council’s ethical guidelines that doctors must have appropriate language skills.
The council’s annual report shows 25 of the 295 complaints it received in 2009 related to a failure to communicate or rudeness by doctors. The highest number of complaints, 122, related to doctors’ professional standards, while 81 related to treatment.
The number of complaints in 2010 are running at about 30 per month and are on course to reach 370 by year end, said the council.
Prof Murphy said 31 of the 295 complaints were referred to fitness to practise tribunals. He said referring about 10 per cent of complaints to a tribunal was “in line with international norms”.
Some 13 doctors were found guilty of professional misconduct and three had their names taken off the medical register last year. Other sanctions include: suspension; placing conditions on a doctor’s ability to practise and advising, admonishing or censuring a doctor.
For the first time, two cases were referred for mediation, with the consent of the doctor and the complainant. The council also published a statement of strategy 2010-2013.
Prof Murphy said the council wished to communicate in more comprehensive ways with the public, the medical profession and other stakeholders.