A further move to make hospital consultant services more available to the public and to reduce the working hours of junior doctors has been announced by the Minister for Health and Children.
The National Task Force on Medical Staffing, to be chaired by Mr David Hanly, author of the Hanly report in accordance with the EU Working Time Directive, is to prepare detailed programmes for implementing changes in both areas, according to Mr Martin.
The Medical Manpower Forum report, published last year, envisaged a substantial increase in the number of consultants and that consultants would be in hospitals 24 hours a day. Out-patient departments would open early in the morning and run into the evening.
The new body will establish the implications of such a policy for the number of consultants, nursing, paramedical, clerical and other support staff.
In tandem with the appointment of extra consultants will be a phased reduction in working hours for non-consultant hospital doctors, as outlined in the Hanly report. Their working week is to be reduced to 58 hours by 2004, 56 hours by 2007 and to 48 hours by 2010.
"The work of the National Task Force on Medical Staffing," Mr Martin said yesterday, "will be critical to resolving the problem of long hours worked by doctors in training and creating a new model of hospital service . . . providing patients with the highest quality service."
Pilot projects will be run to work out how best to implement the reports' recommendations.