High Court settlement ‘behind schedule’, warns IHCA

The High Court settlement on the failure of the State to honour the terms of the 2008 consultant contract with hospital consultants “is being implemented but progress is significantly behind schedule”, according to the IHCA’s annual report.

The report noted, to date, that 2,548 consultant applicants have been confirmed as eligible by the HSE and a total of 2,411 (95 per cent) have been sent final letter offers.

The IHCA note that this leaves an estimated 137 who are awaiting offers.

Of the 2,411 offers issued, 2,171 applicants had returned the consent and release letters, with the IHCA saying that the  remaining consultants are “querying the calculations in the offers received”.

The IHCA annual report notes that the HSE statistics “also confirm that instructions have been sent to the Hospital Groups and CHOs [Community Healthcare Organisations] in respect of 2,111 applications to pay the corrected salary, the shortfall due from 15 June 2018 and 40 per cent of the retrospection due over the previous six years or more”.

The annual report also stated that the consultant applications advisory committee (CAAC) met on 10 occasions in the past 12 months.

Over the past year, the CAAC approved 233 consultant posts, 87 replacements and 146 new posts. In addition, it approved 25 applications for contract changes, including 16 from the 1997 Buckley contract to the 2008 contract and nine between type A, B and B plus.

The type C committee had seven meetings over the past year. In the past year up until the start of September, the committee has recommended 26 applications for change from type B to type C contracts, which have been approved.