News

Critical lack of staff and support services make weekend rostering ‘unworkable’Shifting scarce consultants to low-support Saturdays dismantles high-productivity Monday operations  The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has warned the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: "You cannot roster your way out of a capacity deficit".

Statement by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association on the release of the Medical Council’s Workforce Intelligence Report 2025   One in 12 doctors (9%) have told the Medical Council that they experience difficulties providing patients with sufficient care at least once a day, with more than a quarter (28%) indicating such barriers are evident on a weekly basis.

Current employment restrictions on 24 posts are creating unacceptable patient safety risks, say Consultants The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today (19/08/2026) urged the HSE to immediately lift the embargo on the appointment of 24 funded hospital consultant posts at Cork University Hospital (CUH), given the significant impact of the decision on patient safety and outcomes.

IHCA calls on Minister for Health and HSE to urgently set out national plan to replace lost capacity   The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today (22.07.26) called for urgent clarity on how patient capacity lost following the abolition of insourcing will be replaced. The Association is calling on the Minister for Health and the HSE to outline what replacement capacity will be provided and set a clear timeline for delivery.   Insourcing has now ended across all HSE regions, despite an internal HSE report warning that its abolition could create a “significant risk of unintended harm to patients”. The confidential report, revealed today by The Irish Times, examined the impact on the West and North West region. It covers six acute hospitals across Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal. The report warned that ending insourcing could increase outpatient waiting lists in the region by between 2,000 and 4,000 patients every month.   The report described insourcing as a “critical enabler” of service delivery across the region, accounting for 13% of new outpatient activity in 2024. This fell slightly to 11% in 2025, while insourcing also accounted for 20% of the region’s endoscopy capacity. It warned that without replacement capacity, “this reduction cannot be absorbed within existing core hours”.   The IHCA said that while today’s report relates to one region, insourcing was used across the country and has now ended nationally. The Association said there is no reason to believe the impact on patients in other regions will be any less significant. If one region alone projects up to 4,000 additional patients joining waiting lists monthly, the cumulative impact across all regions could be considerably greater. It called on the Minister to publish equivalent data for every HSE region, allowing the full national impact of ending insourcing to be understood.   Commenting, IHCA President Professor Gabrielle Colleran said: “Insourcing was helping patients. That is the starting point for this conversation and a fact that has been almost entirely lost in the political and media debate of recent months. Consultants were coming in on their own time, outside contracted hours, to see patients who had already been waiting too long for care.   “The HSE’s own internal report warned in writing that ending insourcing without replacement capacity would create a significant risk of unintended harm to patients. The question patients now need answered is simple: what is the plan? What replaces this capacity, and by when?   “Patients should not become unintended casualties of policy decisions. More than one million people are already on waiting lists nationally. We cannot afford to see thousands more patients added every month because capacity has been removed without a clear plan to replace it.”   Professor Colleran added: “Ireland continues to have too few consultants and insufficient protected capacity across outpatient clinics, diagnostics and operating theatres. We also continue to face inadequate investment in hospital infrastructure. Until these underlying issues are addressed, patients will continue to experience unacceptable delays, regardless of which short-term initiatives are introduced or withdrawn.   “I am also deeply concerned about what the narrative of recent months has done to the consultants who participated in insourcing in good faith. The commentary has created a climate in which work that was genuinely helping patients has come to be viewed as inappropriate. Many of our members are now reluctant to be associated with work they should be proud of. That is an unintended but very real consequence of this debate.”   The IHCA noted that waiting lists in Ireland have already reached a record high of more than one million people. Rural and peripheral communities, where patients have fewer alternative healthcare options, are particularly vulnerable to any reduction in access to care.   ENDS   Media contact Lorna Fitzpatrick, Tel: 087-2763941 / Email: l.fitzpatrick@fentonfitzwilliam.com.  

Urgent Government action required to address €5.46bn liability in negligence claims and drawn out legal process, says Irish Hospital Consultants Association Urgent reform of Ireland’s medical negligence system is needed to tackle unacceptable delays patients face during the legal process. That’s according to the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), responding to the publication today (08.07.2026) of the National Treasury Management Agency's (NTMA) Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2025.

Drive to tackle trolley crisis by cancelling elective care has pushed waiting lists over 1 million mark for first time The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today (Friday, 12 June 2026) expressed its extreme concern at the new record number of people waiting for an appointment to be treated or assessed in public hospitals, which has topped the 1 million mark for the first time.

IHCA wants Government to commit to faster timeline for introduction of new national Electronic Health Record The Government should provide additional resources to the HSE to allow it to accelerate the delivery of its landmark national Electronic Health Record (EHR), according to Hospital Consultants.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today welcomed the publication of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report on the use of Teledermatology, saying it builds on the innovative work by Consultants across the country who are adopting new technologies to improve patient care and reduce waiting lists.

Consultant Executive Leadership Programme (CELP) – Applications Now Open The Irish Hospital Consultants Association, in partnership with Trinity Executive Education, is pleased to announce that applications are now open for the inaugural cohort of the Consultant Executive Leadership Programme (CELP). CELP is a consultant-led leadership programme designed to support hospital consultants in navigating the increasing complexity of modern healthcare systems. As clinical leadership becomes central to system performance, the programme provides a structured opportunity to develop the skills required to influence decision-making, lead multidisciplinary teams, and contribute to system-level reform.

FutureCare 2026 conference to hear calls for additional bed capacity, a doubling in NTPF funding, more physician-run hospitals and new accreditation standards in 10-Point Action Plan for health service  A new clinician-led Action Plan for Health will be launched today by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), focusing on improving access, safety and patient outcomes across the health service.