Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 October 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Workforce Planning in the Health Sector: Discussion

Ms Janet O'Farrell:

Yes, I can answer that. I am also a nerd. With these numbers, we can see some of the changes. There were introductions of professional indemnity and increasing demand relating to continuing professional development, CPD. That is cited in the voluntary withdrawals in the qualitative data on a small scale, but not on a scale that would reflect that change or explain it. The rates have increased over time fairly solidly. If we look back to 2014, we can see the rate of withdrawals was 546. Over time, the figure has gone up and up. We do not have a final figure this year because we look at it from 1 January to 31 December, but certainly the trends this year are reflective of what was reported last year. We are seeing broad trends again this year.