Consultants face penalty for too many private patients

Date Published: 24-May-2010

By Darragh McDonagh

Consultants at University Hospital Galway (UHG) could be facing financial penalties for breaching the terms of their contracts with the HSE by treating too many private patients at the hospital.

A recent report revealed that more than half of the consultants at UHG had exceeded the permitted level of private practice at the public hospital last year.

Some 54.5% of consultants at the hospital were found to have exceeded the allowable ratio of private patients to public patients, which the HSE stipulates should range between 30:70 and 20:80.

The percentage of consultants at UHG found to be in breach of their contracts was found to have risen from 47.62% earlier last year.

There is a provision for consultants to face financial penalties if private practice rates remain above the ratio allowed by the HSE under the new contracts which were introduced last year.

More than 80% of the 2,350 consultants working in the State have so far signed up to such contracts.

A total of 218 consultants throughout the country have so far been sent letters by the HSE warning them that they are in breach of their contracts.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel