IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Joint Statement on the Clinical Perfusion Scientist Pay Dispute in Ireland
9 June 2026
The Society of Clinical Perfusion Scientists of Great Britain and Ireland and the College of Clinical Perfusion Scientists of Great Britain and Ireland wish to express our serious concern regarding the ongoing pay dispute affecting Clinical Perfusion Scientists employed within the Health Service Executive in Ireland. The dispute raises important issues of professional recognition, workforce sustainability, patient safety and confidence in established processes for resolving matters of national importance within highly specialised healthcare services.
The Society of Clinical Perfusion Scientists of Great Britain and Ireland is the professional representative body for Clinical Perfusion Scientists across Great Britain and Ireland, promoting and advancing the interests of the profession. The College of Clinical Perfusion Scientists of Great Britain and Ireland is responsible for advancing professional standards, education, training and safe practice within the profession in the interests of patients and the public. We are issuing this statement because the current dispute has implications not only for remuneration, but also for professional recognition, workforce sustainability, service resilience and the safe delivery of highly specialised cardiac services.
Clinical Perfusion Scientists are highly specialised healthcare professionals whose expertise is essential to the safe delivery of cardiac surgery, extracorporeal life support, and other complex procedures requiring advanced circulatory support. Contemporary perfusion practice demands advanced scientific knowledge, specialist clinical judgement, continual professional development, and direct responsibility for the management of life-sustaining technologies during some of the most complex procedures undertaken in healthcare. Their contribution is fundamental to patient safety and to the functioning of modern cardiothoracic and extracorporeal support services.
We understand that perfusionists in Ireland who are represented by Fórsa are due to commence industrial action on 9, 16 and 17 June 2026. This follows a prolonged dispute concerning the removal of a long-standing pay linkage between perfusionists and medical scientists, together with the non-implementation of Labour Court recommendation LCR23209, issued in January 2026. Current public reporting indicates that the recommendation supported restoration of that established pay relationship, with retrospective effect from 1 January 2024, yet this has not been implemented.
The Society and the College recognise that this dispute has arisen through an established industrial relations process that included formal review, appeal and Labour Court consideration. The failure to give effect to recommendations emerging from that process raises concerns about confidence in workforce engagement mechanisms and risks undermining trust, professional morale, recruitment and retention. This is therefore not solely a question of pay; it is also a matter of governance, institutional confidence and the ability of established processes to deliver timely and authoritative resolution.
As professional bodies, neither the Society nor the College is a trade union. We do not organise, direct, endorse, or coordinate industrial action. Matters relating to industrial relations remain the responsibility of recognised employee representative organisations and their members. However, we do have a responsibility to advocate for the professional standing, recognition, development, and long-term sustainability of the perfusion workforce. In that context, we recognise the significant concerns expressed by our colleagues in Ireland regarding professional recognition, equitable remuneration, morale, recruitment, retention and the future resilience of services.
Perfusion services represent one of the most specialised and limited workforce groups within healthcare. Cardiac surgical activity, extracorporeal life support, and other advanced circulatory support services are wholly dependent upon the availability of suitably trained Clinical Perfusion Scientists. Instability within such a small profession presents a significant risk to service resilience, operational continuity and future capacity. Persistent disparities in remuneration relative to comparable professional groups risk further weakening workforce stability and may ultimately affect patient access to timely cardiac care.
Across Great Britain and Ireland, healthcare systems are seeking to expand access to cardiac surgery, mechanical circulatory support and extracorporeal therapies. Such ambitions can only be realised through investment in a sustainable and resilient perfusion workforce. Workforce planning, professional recognition and fair remuneration should therefore be viewed not simply as employment matters, but as essential components of safe service delivery and future healthcare capacity.
The Society and the College remain concerned about the cumulative impact of workforce shortages, rising clinical demand, on-call pressures, expanding extracorporeal life support services, growth in structural heart programmes and professional burnout. Taken together, these factors place sustained pressure on a small and highly specialised workforce. The ability to recruit and retain appropriately trained perfusionists is fundamental to maintaining safe and resilient services, and unresolved workforce pressures may have lasting consequences for morale, continuity, training capacity and long-term workforce planning.
The profession also operates within an increasingly competitive international marketplace. Experienced perfusionists possess highly transferable skills and are actively recruited by healthcare providers across Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, Australasia and the independent sector. Failure to maintain competitive remuneration and appropriate professional recognition risks accelerating workforce attrition and compounding challenges in recruitment and retention.
We call upon all parties to engage constructively and without further delay to secure a fair, credible and sustainable resolution. Given the critical nature of cardiac and extracorporeal life support services, we encourage the Health Service Executive and the Irish Government to engage urgently with representatives of the profession in a manner that recognises the specialist contribution of Clinical Perfusion Scientists, supports workforce stability and safeguards patients and services.
Meaningful engagement should recognise the specialist nature of clinical perfusion practice, the importance of equitable and transparent pay structures, the need to support recruitment and retention within a small but critically important workforce, and the wider consequences that unresolved workforce issues may have for patient access to cardiac services and the resilience of highly specialised healthcare provision.
While the Society and the College do not direct or endorse industrial action, we recognise that such action is often undertaken only when established mechanisms for engagement have not delivered resolution. We acknowledge the seriousness of the present position and the strength of feeling among our colleagues in Ireland. Our overriding concern remains patient safety, service resilience and the long-term future of the profession.
The Society and the College stand ready to provide professional expertise, workforce insight, educational support and specialist advice where these may assist efforts to reach a satisfactory resolution. We also recognise that perfusionists from across Great Britain and Ireland may be asked to provide support during this period. While neither organisation directs the employment decisions of individual Clinical Perfusion Scientists, we encourage all perfusionists to give careful consideration to the issues that have given rise to this dispute, to respect the decisions made by individual colleagues in accordance with their legal and professional obligations, and to act in a manner that supports constructive resolution and the long-term interests of the profession throughout Great Britain and Ireland.
