Medical Council publishes report and recommendations following inspections of Children’s Health Ireland sites

• The Medical Council assessor team conducted inspections in September 2025 at Children’s Health Ireland sites in Crumlin, Tallaght, and Temple Street hospitals
• The Medical Council determined that all sites can continue to provide training, however the report highlights a number of areas for improvement

Wednesday 21st January 2026: The Medical Council has today published its inspection report for Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) hospital sites at Crumlin, Tallaght, and Temple Street.

Medical Council role in medical education & training
The Medical Council’s purpose is to protect the public by promoting and ensuring high standards of professional conduct, education, training, and competence among doctors. The Medical Council sets and monitors standards across undergraduate, intern, and postgraduate stages of medical education and training.

A key part of the Medical Council’s regulatory remit is to conduct inspections to assess compliance with its standards and guidelines for clinical training and experience. The standards define the level of quality required to ensure that training environments effectively support the delivery of education and training for doctors, including interns and specialists.

The Medical Council visited the three CHI sites from Wednesday 24th to Thursday 25th September 2025. The Temple Street site was assessed for compliance with the Medical Council’s ‘Standards for Training and Experience Required for the Granting of a Certificate of Experience to an Intern’ and the Crumlin, Tallaght, and Temple Street sites were assessed for compliance with the Medical Council’s ‘Criteria for the Evaluation of Training Sites.’

In accordance with Sections 49(3), 88(3)(e), and 88(4)(e) of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 (as amended), the Medical Council holds statutory responsibility for the approval of clinical training sites that deliver intern and specialist medical education and training. It also conducts inspections of clinical training sites that host approved intern and specialist training posts.

On-site visits and compliance ratings
On-site inspections were conducted at three CHI locations: Tallaght, Temple Street, and Crumlin.

The assessor team were satisfied with the training provided to interns at CHI at Temple Street. All 7 intern training standards were deemed to be fully compliant. The recommendation is that CHI at Temple Street continue to be approved as a site for intern training.

The Medical Council has 18 standards for clinical sites supporting the delivery of specialist training. During the visit, 4 standards were assessed as being fully compliant, with 12 areas deemed partially complaint, and 2 deemed as non-compliant. The report captures an overview of gaps consistently identified across all three sites, as well as site specific gaps. The report also includes site-wide and site-specific recommendations.

Overview of findings
Overall, across all three CHI sites, trainee doctors were positive about their training experience, including their ability to get their required assessments completed by their trainer. Trainees were also clear about the supervisory arrangements in place during their rotations and were mostly positive about the opportunities for training through clinical practice.

The two-day inspection highlighted the commitment of doctors at all levels to deliver high-quality patient care, often in the face of challenges related to inadequate Human Resources (HR) and Information Communication Technology (ICT) resources. Consultant trainers were reported to be consistently available to Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors (NCHDs), with trainees reporting confidence in seeking support during on-call hours. Consultants frequently attended the hospitals out-of-hours to uphold patient safety and maintain high standards of care.

The Medical Council’s report outlines the key findings from the inspection, addresses concerns raised during the visit, and highlights areas of good practice. Recommendations have been assigned timelines to support prioritisation and follow-up.

Summary of recommendations
The Medical Council identified areas for improvement through discussions with trainers, trainees and management. Within its report, the Medical Council has outlined site-wide and site-specific recommendations for CHI.

Recommendations in the areas of HR and ICT have been identified because patient safety concerns were raised primarily as a result of operational inefficiencies within these areas. Other areas for improvement and immediate action include:

• Clear and timely process for incident reporting, including near misses;
• To safeguard trainee and staff wellbeing, CHI must establish a clear and accessible process for raising and escalating concerns;
• CHI should reintroduce formal feedback surveys for all doctors and include a timely closed loop feedback system;
• Enhancing the learning experience by ensuring trainees have appropriate access to medical literature and journals, including online access to maximise opportunities for self-directed learning;
• To support doctors transitioning between sites during training; CHI should develop programme specific inductions for all specialities
• Promotion of the Medical Council’s Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners (9th edition) 2024, to safeguard public confidence in CHI doctors.

The visiting team also noted commendations such as the Gentle Landing Programme for its support to International Medical Graduates transitioning to work in Ireland for the first time, which is offered in CHI Crumlin, and the availability of trainers and consultant support.

After the inspection process, CHI will receive an Action and Implementation Plan detailing all recommendations across the three sites. CHI will then meet with the Medical Council to present its approach for implementing these recommendations. Following this, CHI will enter the annual returns monitoring process. Repeat inspections will take place if required and an inspection of the new National Children’s Hospital will take place once fully operational by the Medical Council’s in accordance with its regulatory remit to assess compliance with the standards and guidelines for clinical training and experience.

Dr Maria O’Kane, CEO of the Medical Council, said, “The Medical Council assessor team inspected three clinical training sites within the Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Group from 24th – 25th September 2025. The visit followed significant concerns from multiple sources regarding findings from an internal examination by CHI in 2021/2022.

“Ensuring the quality of medical education and training in Ireland is a collaborative effort between the various bodies responsible for quality assurance, quality management quality control and improvement. The Medical Council’s responsibility lies in setting medical education and training standards and taking actions where our high standards are not met.

“The purpose of our inspection at CHI was to seek assurance that the quality of medical education and training, the trainee experience and trainee wellbeing across the three CHI sites have not been adversely affected, and that patient safety is not compromised.

“In line with our regulatory remit, we have made recommendations to support CHI and to further enhance patient safety.”

Paul Byrne, Executive Director of Education, Innovation, and AI, Medical Council said, “These inspections were carried out in line with the Medical Council’s standards. Today, we are publishing recommendations in areas where improvements are required to strengthen the clinical training environment across CHI sites.

“These recommendations are made to support the safe care and protection of patients, and we are committed to working with CHI to address them as part of our role in promoting high standards of care, assurance, and continuous quality improvement.”

The Medical Council’s inspection report is available here.