Mistake leads HSE to spend over €3m for 12 extra trainee doctors

The Health Service Executive is to fund 12 extra doctor training places at a cost to the taxpayer of more than €3 million after an error was made in this year's recruitment process.

It made the decision after the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), which is responsible for GP training schemes, admitted a mistake was made in the way in which marks were allocated to applicants.

This resulted in a number of candidates getting places they should not have got, while others were refused offers when they should have been awarded places.

After the ICGP realised its mistake, it wrote to affected applicants, some of whom were told they might no longer have a place on the local training scheme of their choice.

This prompted a Facebook campaign by some of those whose offer of a place was to be rescinded. The HSE then agreed to fund additional places to ensure all of the applicants originally offered a place would get one.

Ranking applicants

There were 275 applications for 157 places on GP training schemes this year, the first time a CAO-type process was used to rank applicants nationally and determine how the places were to be filled.

There are 14 different local schemes and candidates were asked to list the schemes in order of preference.

Schemes in urban areas tend to be over-subscribed, while in others based in smaller centres of population, places can remain unfilled.

The ICGP says the error arose when some candidates’ scores were “incorrectly processed”.

“One candidate’s training place offer being affected is too many. There is great regret that some candidates have been placed in this situation,” a spokeswoman said.

“However, ICGP could not allow incorrect offers to be maintained.”

Turned down

About 135 of the successful candidates were not affected by the error but the remainder included people who had turned down incorrect first-round offers and others who shouldn’t have received an offer.

The HSE was unable to say how much each additional GP training place would cost but between salary, overtime and administrative expenses the estimated cost per doctor is €350,000 over the four years of training.

Last year, the HSE asked for an additional 10 GP training places but the ICGP declined to facilitate the request.

The ICGP said it had “informal discussions” on the transfer of the delivery of GP training, and the employment of training staff, from the HSE, though no agreement has been reached on the process.

There are no plans to change the structure of GP training, which involves two years of hospital work followed by two years in general practice, it says.

The HSE pays for the costs of running 14 separate training schemes around the country, each with their own programme director, assistant directors and administrator.