The IHCA has called for a probe into the “substantial and ongoing increase” in daily fees charged for beds in public hospitals and simultaneous “significant cuts of between 15 and 45 per cent in procedure fees paid to consultants”.

The NAGP described last Thursday’s (November 6) meeting with the Health Minister Dr Leo Varadkar and Minister of State Kathleen Lynch as “constructive and positive”, and hoped it represented “the beginning of a productive ongoing relationship”.

The Chairman of the IMO has stressed that it is the number of GPs in any health system — not the number of nurses or physiotherapists — that can have the greatest impact on a nation’s health, IMT reports.

THE CEO of the ICGP has welcomed a new HSE report on the future configuration of community services, however, he said there was a need for more detail in relation to implementation, time lines and resources.

The Minister for Health intends to bring a memorandum for an Assisted Reproduction Bill to Government by year’s end, which would deal with issues of legal parentage, surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, IMT reports.

The HSE is working to establish health identifier registers and will manage the operation of the identifiers system, due to commence “as soon as possible in 2015,” the Minister for Health, Dr Leo Varadkar has said.

About 10,000 people aged over 70 years in Ireland, who currently have neither a medical card nor a GP visit card, will be provided with free GP services without fees next year, the Minister for Health said in a Seanad address on priotities for 2015.

Dara Gantly speaks with this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Prof Barry O’Donnell about pioneering paediatric surgery in Ireland, representing doctors here, in Britain and Canada simultaneously, and how championing groundbreaking research is not always plain sailing.

Dr Muiris Houston looks at new research from Galway examining how the adoption of crew resource management used in the aviation industry can improve teamwork and co-ordination in medicine.

Ireland’s pioneering health literacy training programme for healthcare professionals (HCPs), developed by University College Cork (UCC) in partnership with MSD and the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA), has been launched.