Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 October 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Health Service Executive: Financial Statements 2023

9:30 am

Mr. Bernard Gloster:

Because they are contractually and legally sound, if we ask a doctor to be available in a particular rota or format, we cannot then, as managers, determine when it is clinically appropriate for them to decide to come in or not come in on a particular call. There are challenges to it. It is not as simple as saying we are capping them to coming in on a certain number of days. If there are only 1 or 1.5 doctors in a particular specialty, the priority is the public interest and safety.