Health service set to appoint 18 consultant psychiatrists

Mental healthHealth service management has offered to appoint an additional 18 consultant psychiatrists and associated support teams to hospitals around the State.

The move is an effort to end the row with medical organisations which is delaying the establishment of the proposed mental health tribunals.

A Department of Health spokesman said good progress had been made in talks between management and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) and the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) which went on for several hours under the auspices of the Joint National Council for the Health Services.

It is understood that the offer to establish 18 additional consultant posts - which is higher than the figure expected for normal service development - is aimed at providing relief in hospitals for psychiatrists who will serve on the tribunals or be asked to give evidence before them.

Both the IMO and the IHCA are to consult their members on the offer which was made by senior officials of the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health.

It is expected further documentation will also be exchanged between the parties.

The mental health tribunals will review the cases of persons detained involuntarily in psychiatric hospitals around the State. Around 3,500 people are detained involuntarily each year in Ireland - an issue that has been a cause of concern to human rights groups.

However, the IMO and the IHCA had advised members not to apply for positions on the new tribunals in a row over the level of support which would be made available by the Government to relieve doctors serving and giving evidence before them. As a result, the establishment of the mental health tribunals has been delayed for some time.

The Department last month threatened to withhold a forthcoming 1.5 per cent pay increase due to 290 consultant psychiatrists if they continued to oppose recruitment to the tribunals.

Last week The Irish Times reported that Secretary General of the Department of Health Michael Scanlan had accused the consultant psychiatrists of "thwarting the will of the Oireachtas" in their opposition to recruitment to the mental health tribunals.

The consultant organisations had strongly objected to the threat by the Department of Health to withhold the pay increase, which is due next month.

The organisations said that participation on the mental health tribunals was voluntary and not part of their contracts with the State.

The consultant bodies also maintained that the row would cast a shadow over the current negotiations on a new contract for senior hospital doctors, which ironically started the day after the talks aimed at resolving the dispute over the tribunals.

The opening session of talks on the new contract was in any event acrimonious, according to sources who were present.

The IMO and the IHCA criticised health service managers for previous unilateral breaches of the existing contract. It is understood that the IMO wanted a series of outstanding grievances - such as pension issues and the failure to apply a recent 7.5 per cent pay award to consultants' on-call and call-out payments - addressed.

The IHCA and the IMO also objected to proposals by health service management that the issue of payment for changes in the contract should be referred, at the end of the process, to the review body for top-level pay in the public service.

The medical bodies want remuneration for changes in the contract dealt with directly in the talks.