At a meeting held under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission on the 5th May 2009, agreement was reached between the IMO and the HSE / Department of Health and Children on proposals for the establishment of an interim out of hours Public Health service.

Under the terms of the agreement, it was proposed that the service would begin on the 1st June 2009 and run for an initial six month trial period. The system would provide for one Doctor on call in each of the former Health Board areas (2 for ERHA) plus one Doctor on call in the Health Protection Surveillance Centre. This would give a total of 10 Doctors on call nationwide per week. The rate of payment would be €576.00 per week, for each week that a doctor is on call.

The IMO held a national information meeting for Specialist and Director Members on the 20th May 2009 on the terms of the proposals. A ballot of IMO Specialist and Director Members was undertaken by the IMO without a recommendation on acceptance or rejection. The outcome of the ballot became known on the 27th May 2009 and resulted in a 65% vote in favour of acceptance of the proposals.

The IMO subsequently wrote to the HSE advising of the outcome of the ballot and requesting implementation of the interim service. The IMO also wrote to the Department of Health and Children requesting confirmation of payment of the back dated 2.5% pay increase under Towards 2016 and the first 5% of the Review Body award (also to be backdated). These awards had been withheld pending the establishment of the out of hours service.

The IMO received notification from the Department that these awards would be paid. However, due to communication and other difficulties, the payments were not formally approved by the HSE National Director of Human Resources until 7th August 2009.

The IMO also contacted HSE Employers around this time requesting that the grades of Specialist in Public Health Medicine and Director of Public Health be exempted from the moratorium on recruitment into the Public Service to better facilitate the smooth running of the interim service.

As the service is now reaching the conclusion of its ‘interim’ phase, negotiations are due to commence during the week beginning 16th November 2009 to determine the future of the Public Health out of hours service.