Statement on the release of the Medical Council’s Workforce Intelligence Report 2024

Commenting on today’s (Tuesday, 29 July 2025) publication of the Medical Council’s ‘Medical Workforce Intelligence Report 2024’, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said it confirms what is already widely known, that Consultants and other doctors are routinely working in excessive of their contractual hours.

“The report found that 45% of specialists are consistently working more than 40 hours on average per week, in excess of their contractual hours, with close to one in five (18%) working more than 48 hours, in contravention of the European Working Time Directive. Of course, the situation is even worse for our NCHDs.

“Such excessive workloads and understaffing can lead to stress and burnout, and is a known contributing factor to driving our doctors abroad where they can find better conditions and work-life balance. In 2024, 1,025 doctors voluntarily withdrew their registration from the Medical Council. A quarter of these (255 or 25%) were registered on the Specialist Division.

“The Association is particularly concerned with the finding that almost half (45%) of all doctors who report working more than 48 hours on average per week are spending more than 48 hours in direct patient care. This means these doctors are not only working excessive hours, but are doing so in intensely pressurised conditions. The Medical Could found this is most common in the specialties of surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology.

“It should therefore not be surprising to learn that 1 in 10 doctors report experiencing difficulties at least once a day providing a patient with the sufficient level of care needed. While ‘pressure on workloads’ was the single most frequently quoted barrier to providing good patient care, the fact that “time spent on bureaucracy/administration” was a close second highlights yet again the need to accelerate the rollout of electronic health records across the health system, as recommended in the Government’s recently revised National Development Plan.”

ENDS

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