Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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31. To ask the Minister for Health if he is aware of the severe shortage of medical scientists working in hospitals; if he is aware of the impact this is having on patients nationwide; if he will consider an amendment to legislation that would allow CORU to accredit scientists in a single discipline to provide an instant boost in numbers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25061/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will already be aware, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council and Registration Boards, collectively known as CORU, are responsible for protecting the public by promoting high standards of professional conduct, education, training, and competence amongst the professions designated under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act (2005).

The Medical Scientists Registration Board is an independent board with statutory powers to implement regulation for the profession. The board is responsible for establishing the register of medical scientists, approving and monitoring education and training programmes, and setting standards.

The Medical Scientists Registration Board has set its Standards of Proficiency – which articulate the threshold knowledge, skills, competence, and professional attributes that are required for public protection on entry to its register. On entry to the register, medical scientists are competent to practice in all major specialities, as part of multi-disciplinary teams and provide routine or ‘out of hours’ services in either a single speciality or multi-disciplinary settings as required.

My officials consulted with CORU who have clarified that proposals to establish divisions of the register for medical scientists would require distinct and separate standards of proficiency for entry to each division of a register. If the Medical Scientists Registration Board were to adopt divisions of its register, it would fundamentally change the current structures and provision of education and training of Irish graduates. If divisions were specific to specialisms, with distinct education standards for entry, and education and training programmes aligned to these, graduates would not be competent to practice across all major specialisms nor perform routine or ‘out of hours’ services in multi-disciplinary settings as required.

Divisions of a register are linked to distinct professional titles which provides assurance as to the threshold standard for entry to each division and which is clearly communicated to the public through the use of the protected title (for example, division of dispensing optician). In circumstances where a registration board has established divisions, such as for radiographers and radiation therapists, there are defined titles and standards for entry to practice in each division of the register. This would not be the case for medical scientists. It would create confusion as to what can be expected of a professional holding a given title, which creates risk for public protection, where registrants in different divisions all use the same protected title ‘medical scientist’ with no differentiation by title as to which specialism they are equipped to practice safely.

It should be noted that any proposed change to the regulatory model for medical scientists, even if deemed appropriate by the Medical Scientists Registration Board, would not be achievable in the short term to address immediate recruitment challenges, given the likely impact on current education and training structures, service delivery, and protection of the public.

Work is ongoing with the HSE and other stakeholders to consider solutions to address recruitment, career progression, and retention issues, for example through increasing the number of undergraduate programme places and establishing graduate entry programmes for medical science.