The introduction of an extended working day in the new Public Only Consultant contract had provided a range of benefits for patients, Anne Marie Hoey, Chief People Officer, HSE told the Conference.
Ms. Hoey was speaking on “The Extended Working Day/The Extended Working Week. ”
She said the new Consultant contract had improved patient centred care, provided greater access to services such as diagnostics at evenings and weekends and ensured that more senior staff were rostered in Emergency Departments to support decision making and patient flow.
THE EXTENDED DAY FRAMEWORK
The overarching aim of extended hours was to facilitate a smoother patient flow against the principle of equality of treatment irrespective of the day of the week.
The availability of clinics over the extended day alongside Saturday clinics were among the initial benefits. They meant more choice for patients where clinics were available and that patients might not require to take a day of leave to attend a health appointment. They also meant that senior clinical decision makers who could make a decision to discharge patients home were available.
It also improved Consultant recruitment and retention for smaller hospitals which benefitted from increases in Consultants across specialties.
The contract provided that consultants who took up the contract could only undertake public work in the public hospital in which they worked . In other words, public hospitals are used exclusively for public patients towards the objective of Slaintecare and a single tier hospital system. It also provided for the introduction of an extended working day/week in the HSE and HSE funded services.
The implementation date of the Public Only Consultants Contract 2023 (POCC23) was March 8, 2023. All new contractual offers made to Consultants from that date were on the basis of the new contract and all existing consultants were offered the opportunity to switch to the new contract.
A total of 3,090 consultant had taken up the Public Only Consultant Contract at the end August 2025. This compared to 2,770 at the end 2024 and 1,472 at the end of 2023. The number of consultants employed has increased by 1450 in the past five years.
Ms. Hoey said that in negotiating the contract the emphasis was to focus on improvements in the health service and to ensure that the contract was sufficiently attractive to encourage doctors to take it up. There was strong evidence of continuous improvements and achievement of the objectives.
