‘Realistic’ travel times for consultants must be included in work plans

The HSE must account for the realities of travel for consultants working across multiple sites, heard the national consultant meeting at the recent IMO AGM in Killarney.

Consultants passed a motion calling on the HSE to ensure work plans with “split site commitments include realistic travel times from their base site so as not to effectively expect consultants to work longer hours than colleagues” who are working at single sites.

IMO President Prof Matthew Sadlier said that with increasing levels of care in the community, “there are more and more [consultant] jobs at multi-sites, and often in the job plan, travel time is not included within the 39 hours.”

Former IMO President Dr Clive Kilgallen said the issue also impacted doctors working in cities.

“Even in Dublin, where people are working split jobs, you would think it would be easy enough to get from Temple Street to Beaumont, for instance. But sometimes it’s not. And then sometimes there is no parking for the consultant… there are a number of issues.”

Dr John Duddy, Consultant Neurosurgeon, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, noted that if a consultant’s job plan involved different employers, it “creates a whole lot [of] different problems for colleagues who work on maybe three different sites”.

During the meeting, the new Chair of the consultants’ committee Dr Mick Molloy welcomed the recent rise in consultant numbers. However, he warned that further increases were needed.

“As the population increases, so should the consultant number increase, if we are hoping to sustain the same level of services,” stated Dr Molloy, a Consultant in Emergency Medicine.

The meeting unanimously passed a motion welcoming the recruitment of additional consultants. However, it also called for the Department of Health and HSE to increase the speed and number of consultant appointments. The meeting noted that the average number of consultants per 1,000 population in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is 2.45 compared to 1.44 in Ireland.