Consultants plan to seek pay increase from review body

Contract talks: Hospital consultants are considering plans to seek a significant salary increase from the review body which examines top level pay in the public sector following the collapse of talks with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health on a new contract.

It is understood that the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) wrote to the independent chairman of the contract negotiations, barrister Mark Connaughton, at the weekend inquiring if he planned to continue with the process, which has been stalled since last February.

If the contract talks were to prove unsuccessful, the IHCA may make a submission seeking pay increases to the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector.

The review body is examining pay scales of ministers, senior civil servants, judges and top local authority and health sector managers and is scheduled to make a recommendation on pay rises next year.

Hospital consultants come under the scope of the review body's work.

However, medical organisations have held off from making a submission pending the outcome of talks with the HSE and the Department of Health on a new contract, which was also expected to deal with salary levels.

Hospital consultants believe that aside from contractual changes, they are entitled to significant pay increases for increased productivity over recent years.

It is not known if the IHCA has put a figure on the amount it would seek in a submission to the review body.

Attempts to re-start the talks on a new contract broke down amid much acrimony last Wednesday.

The talks have been stalled since last February largely as a result of the unilateral decision of the board of the HSE to abolish a form of consultant post known as "category II" which allowed doctors employed by the State to also treat fee-paying patients in private hospitals.

The HSE is seeking to introduce a new contract which would see consultants become salaried employees with no private practice rights.

The HSE has offered to allow replacement consultant posts be created under the category II contract for the duration of the negotiations on a new contract.

However, it insisted that new or additional posts should not come under the category II arrangement.

The IHCA claimed that the abolition of the category II post represented a breach of the Sustaining Progress national agreement by the management side.

Neither the IHCA nor the Irish Medical Organisation was prepared to go back into negotiations until the category II decision was rescinded completely for the duration of the talks.

The HSE accused the medical organisations of intransigence and maintained that the category II posts flew in the face of its plans for hospital reform.

It is thought that the HSE had come half way, in the expectation that the consultants would move to meet them.

There was anger among senior ministers at the latest breakdown in attempts to secure a new consultant contract - a key feature in the Government's overall healthcare reforms.

Government sources accused the consultants of trying to push the negotiations back beyond the general election next year in the hope that the political climate would be more favourable for them at that stage.

Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney had threatened to impose a new contract in the event of negotiations not succeeding.

Management sources said they did not believe that stage had been reached as of yet.