Regulating for the Workforce of the Future: Addressing the Healthcare Workforce Crisis in Scotland and Ireland
Location:
Online only
Date/time
Tue 25 November 2025
13:00-14:00
About this event
This presentation will report on new findings from a recent research project (February – October 2025) on the role of professional regulation in addressing the healthcare workforce crisis, jointly funded by The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) and The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), with the support of the Scottish Government Office in Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs. You can see the project page here.
The healthcare workforce crisis has been recognised internationally as a significant threat to population health and health systems (Fleming et al. 2022). Through issues such as the production of jobs, investment and spending, public health, and economic inequality, the healthcare workforce is also intimately associated with a robust economy (Bloom et al. 2019). Thus, the healthcare workforce crisis is an economic threat as well as a global health challenge. As high-income countries with mature systems of health professional regulation, equivalent regulatory stakeholders, and populations spread across cosmopolitan and rural areas, the comparator case studies of Scotland and Ireland enabled us to consider what we can learn from these experiences about the relationship between (i) professional regulation; (ii) its role in addressing the healthcare workforce crisis; and (ii) the promotion of an economy that values the wellbeing of patients, publics and professionals.
Focusing on the medical profession (though considering the wider implications for other regulated professions), we will draw on four key themes that emerged from Stakeholder Roundtable Workshops held in Cork (March 2025) and Edinburgh (June 2025). These are: the multifaceted nature of the crisis; regulating new professions; remote and rural working; and the changing role of professional regulation. In different ways these themes each provide insights into how professional regulation can help to create sustainable impact for health systems under strain. In conclusion we will outline our plans to further develop this interdisciplinary research agenda.
About the speakers
Dr Mary Tumelty is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, University College Cork, with research interests in the areas of health law, patient safety, and alternative dispute resolution. Her primary research focus is interdisciplinary in nature, examining the relationship between law, policy, and healthcare practice. Dr Tumelty’s work has been funded by the Royal Irish Academy, Research Ireland, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She has also collaborated on projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). In 2021, Dr Tumelty was appointed to the Health Research Consent Declaration Committee (HRCDC) by the Minister for Health. She was also a member of the Health and Social Care Professionals Council (CORU) (Ireland’s multi-profession health regulator) from 2019-2023
Annie Sorbie is a Senior Lecturer in Health, Medical Law and Ethics at Edinburgh Law School, with a research and teaching portfolio. Prior to her career in academia, she had over 14 years’ experience of legal practice in the health, social care and regulatory sector (September 2001 – December 2015, Partner from 2009). Dr Sorbie’s research interrogates two related areas: health research regulation, with a focus on the role of the public interest, and the regulation of individual health and social care professionals. Patient safety and voice is a theme that runs through both topics and her research has most recently been funded by Wellcome, NIHR, Royal Society of Edinburgh and Royal Irish Academy. She has been called upon to provide independent expert advice to a range of public and third sector bodies including advising the Scottish Government as an invited member of an Independent Expert Group on Unlocking the Value of Data, and the Infected Blood Inquiry on the statutory and professional duties of candour. Dr Sorbie is a Deputy Director of the Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and the Law, and an appointed member of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee. She served on the Patient Safety Group of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 2018 – 2024.
This event is online only.
Image credit: Freepik