What does the Medical Council do?
The Medical Council, which was established in 1978 under the Medical Practitioners Act, is charged with maintaining a general and specialist register of medical practitioners.
Its role is to satisfy itself as to the standards of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and training, and to investigate allegations of professional misconduct. It also assesses fitness to practice medicine by doctors with a physical or mental disability.
The council consists of 25 members made up of 21 professional and four lay members. Five are appointed as representatives of the State's university medical schools. Four representatives are appointed by the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (two each). Ten members are elected by the medical profession, with the remaining six appointed directly by the Minister for Health - four of whom are lay members.
Each council holds office for a five year period. The present council took office in May, following elections. The Minister for health has yet to nominate his direct appointees to the current council. It has several subgroups with specific responsibilities. These include fitness to practice, education and training , registration, house and finance and ethics committees.
As a statutory body, the council is independent of the Department of Health. It is funded by an annual registration fee of €254 fully registered doctors.
The Medical Council maintains a register of doctors in good professional standing. A doctor can be struck off for professional misconduct following. Decisions to censure a doctor must be ratified by the High Court before they can be implemented.
While the council attracts most attention for its fitness to practice and ethics functions, the protection of the public is achieved by less obvious work,such as maintaining standards of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. It has the power to make recommendations to individual hospitals on matters which affect doctor training and ongoing education.
The last Council carried out considerable work in the area of competence assurance; there is now a directorate of competence assurance which is working towards a five yearly review of a doctors competence to practise medicine. However it is generally accepted that a new Medical Practitioners Act is needed to move this and other important public protection issues forward.