Northern Ireland doctors in ill-health suffering due to ‘unacceptable’ OH backlog

Doctors in Northern Ireland who need to retire because of ill health or terminal illness are facing “serious and unacceptable delays” in being able to do so because of chronic workforce shortages in occupational health, a meeting of the British Medical Association (BMA) has heard.

The BMA’s annual representative meeting in Liverpool last week criticised the Northern Ireland Department of Health for failing to react sufficiently to the workforce crisis in occupational health, with delegates describing themselves as “shocked and dismayed”.

A motion at the meeting, which was passed overwhelmingly by representatives, called on the department to reinstate full pay for those doctors on sickness absence, who are caught up “through no fault of their own in these intolerable delays”, the BMJ reported.

Dr Catherine Anne Carson, who proposed the motion, said it was “frankly negligent” that doctors in desperate need of support do not have access to it because of the backlog in occupational health.

Dr Carson said: “The Department of Health in Northern Ireland has failed to react to this workforce crisis. Doctors in Northern Ireland who are ill, including some who are dying from terminal illness, are not able to retire because of this occupational health backlog. These delays are exacerbating anxiety at the worst time in their lives.”

The meeting called on the department to outline a clear timetable for the restoration of Northern Ireland’s occupational health service immediately.

It also urged the department to publish the numbers of healthcare workers affected by the delays and apologise to them.

Representatives demanded the department re-establish the occupational health training programme in the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency “to assist with future succession planning, thereby ensuring this does not happen again.”

Speaking in favour of the motion, Dr David Farren, chair of the BMA Northern Ireland Consultants Committee, said: “It is a disgrace that it has got to the point where there isn’t even a proper training scheme for people in this specialty.”