27 May 2025
Effective advocacy and influencing by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has resulted in the creation of dozens of new EM consultant roles in Northern Ireland.
Today (27 May 2025) NI Health Minister Mike Nesbitt MLA has announced 26 newly qualified consultants will be in post by the end of the year.
The Minister committed to creating the positions following work by RCEM that highlighted a shortage of senior doctors after the College conducted an Emergency Medicine workforce census in the country last year.
The work analysed data collected from all major EDs in NI, revealing there was just one consultant per 7,786 A&E attendances.
The recommended number is one for every 4,000 patients.
RCEM’s work also revealed that there were 26 trainees due to complete specialist training in Emergency Medicine in the following 12 months, and that there weren’t enough Consultant posts for these highly skilled healthcare professionals to move into.
These concerns were raised by RCEM’s Vice President and Vice Chair of Northern Ireland during a meeting with the Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt, and healthcare officials, in August last year.
As a result of this meeting, work commenced involving the Department of Health (DOH), the Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts, and RCEM, to ensure a recruitment plan was in place for these newly qualified Consultants.
Some posts have already been filled with the DOH saying it is confident the other will be filled by the end of 2025.
Dr Russell McLaughlin, Vice President for RCEM Northern Ireland said: “We are delighted to be able to share this excellent news with our members and their colleagues following months of work and collaboration with the Health Minister and the Northern Ireland Executive.
“As today has highlighted, RCEM’s workforce census is a vital piece of work which helps to clearly demonstrate the true extent of the workforce pressures present in EDs.
“We thank all ED Clinical Leads and Directors who shared critical data last year, which allowed us to form a clear set of recommendations to politicians. And we thank the Minister and his team for taking on our recommendations and for actioning them.
“It’s crucial our departments have Consultants – who are senior decision makers – to ensure EDs are properly and safely resourced for patients to be cared for.
“We hope this announcement brings some futureproofing to the EM workforce, and we look forward to continuing working with policymakers to achieve our shared aim of resuscitating Emergency Care in Northern Ireland.”
