The Medical Council has published a new Charter of Expectations document, formalising its commitment to continuously improve service in its core activity of handling registration queries.

HIQA has published for consultation draft recommended criteria and thresholds that patients should meet before they are referred for certain scheduled orthopaedic surgical procedures, this time targeted at the high volume interventions affecting an ageing population.

Years like 2013 are out of the ordinary for doctors in training, the NCHD Committee Chairman Dr John Donnellan tells Lloyd Mudiwa ahead of the IMO’s 30th AGM, in Kildare this weekend.

The HSE Capital Plan 2014 has now been submitted to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin for his sign off before publication, Irish Medical Times reports.

With a ‘call to arms’ to attend this year’s AGM, IMO GP Committee Chairman Dr Ray Walley believes the draft under-sixes contract has driven a ‘coach-and-four’ through the relationship between State and GPs.

Gary Culliton spoke with Chairman of the Consultant Committee of the IMO Prof Trevor Duffy about why the health service is continuing to have such a difficult time recruiting consultants, and the limitations of relying on a locum workforce.

The Oireachtas is looking for outside experts to draw up two research papers that will consider Government health policy and which must be “objective, balanced and non-partisan”.

The IHCA has warned against any moves that might jeopardise the role of hospital clinical directors.

The IMO has set an objective of achieving a mechanism that would deliver a single pay scale for consultants by July and is hopeful of a resolution to the new-entrant consultants pay issue before the Summer.

While the Government has approved the text of the Health (General Practitioners Service) Bill 2014 that will bring in free GP care to the under-sixes, new research in the IMJ points to a massive increased workload facing GPs if and when the change is brought in, writes Dara Gantly.