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IN THE YEAR to June, the HSE spent just over €180 million paying agency staff.
The figures, released to Fianna Fáil Health Spokesperson Billy Kelleher via a parliamentary question, show an increase of 7% on the same time last year.
In its response to Kelleher, the HSE said that the spend for the first six months of the year is 64% of the current anticipated spend for the full year.
“The HSE continuously monitors agency staff expenditure and revises estimates in line with service requirements,” it said.
The expenditure should be considered in the overall context including increasing demand for services; the impact of earlier constraints on recruitment in the public service; ongoing challenges in relation to the recruitment and retention of clinical staff… and efforts to reduce expenditure on agency staff.
It added that agency pay cost “is under constant review”.
In its Service Plan 2017, the HSE said that overall pay expenditure, including agency staff pay, would be “monitored, managed and controlled”.
“This will ensure compliance with allocated pay budgets,” it said. “There is a continuous review of the cost and reliance on agency staff to ensure that the level used is appropriate to meet the needs of service delivery and that agency use is reduced or service need met by the recruitment of staff paid directly when this is suitable.”
Kelleher claimed that it was more a case of an “upward review” rather than a “continuous review”, according to the latest figures.
The Cork North-Central TD said: “The €181 million spent so far amounts to 64% of the projected budget for agency staff in 2017 – which basically means that there has been a €40 million overrun in the first six months.
We all know that providing the resources for health expenditure will always be challenging. Ensuring that spending on agency staff comes in on target is an absolute must in this regard.
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We need to look at who owns the agency’s, and who is signing off on the contracts to them!
Wonder is there any connections?
@John Dman: spot on!! we all know the answer
@DeFonz:
And what is the answer??
@Nick Allen: DOB
@DeFonz: someone is making big bucks out of this agency business, it ain’t the nurses
@John Dman: and when all this looking at the agency’s is finished. Who is going to staff the hospitals.
@John Dman: the Office of Government Procurement has done an EU e-tendering process that resulted in a National Framework for the Supply of Agency Nursing Staff.
Full details here http://www.ogp.gov.ie.
@John Dman: Well now you know its all very cosy in cosyland
@John Dman: the agencies used by the HSE are:
TTM
CPL
Nurse on Call
Cora’s
You can look them up on http://www.cro.ie, download their financial statements, etc., and see who the owners are. Then write to the owners and ask them if they have any connection with the person in the Office of Government Procurement who signed the contracts. This is called “Research”.
Until then, you are not in a position to make wild accusations about corruption by a Civil Servant – a very serious accusation.
CPL is a publicly quoted company, so you will be able to see exactly who the owners are. As far as I know, DOB has no connection with any of those companies.
@John Dman: various agencies which are private companies tendered for the business under the procurement regulations. Same as any other company tendering for business.
Is there a plan behind this? I.e. has there been a reduction in the recruitment of newer nurses to offset retirements and leavers and the overall budget is being reduced in the long term by recruiting agency staff that don’t need ps contracts, pensions, rights etc? Surely some insider from the dept of health can tell us this, as Harris would only spin a load of nonsense.
@Gulliver Foyle: plan: divest to the point of making privatisation look a more attractive option than the current system.
Call me a cynic but I think it’s driven by this “screw the poor” attitude
@Gulliver Foyle: The answer is really very simple.
Very few people applying to work in health care compared to a few of years ago. This coupled with high burn out rates, poor moral, retirement. Meaning people are leaving faster than they can be replaced.
@Gulliver Foyle: nurses won’t take permanent posts because the working conditions and pay is so bad currently. Most young nurses do agency work to save up and get out of the country to work where they have some value, they certainly are not valued here.
But tax payers can as ever rest assured the HSE (untouchable official Ireland) has not spent all the dosh its senior management have planned to divert to cushy recruitment outsourcing scams, to pad out their inflated salaries and pension pots..
Wasn’t there talk of an app/software that the Mater were trialling that would offer available short notice shifts to their own staff before falling back on an agency? Apparently it was really successful in reducing costs in the country it was developed in.
@Sarah Kelleher: surely any nurse that wants a few extra shifts could put there name on a list, and the CNM could ring them? Why do we always need to complicate things?
@John Dman: They do, its called the hospital nursing bank. The nursing bank includes any full time start who want to join it for overtime. part-time staff and the relief panel staff and includes Nurses, HCA’s and student nurses working as HCA’s when they are out of college. But here’s the problem. There’s not enough and a huge fall off in the amount of applications.
@Thomas Maher: And most importantly , omitting to actually PAY the nurse for the shift/s OR taking the shift as time OWED to the hospital. Now , there ya have it , that’s why no one wants to work extra shifts .
I think it interfaced into payroll so the extra payments are automated and it texted everyone at the same time so you didn’t have to wait for a response from one person to ring the next…
the “HSE”-the “Hopeless Spending Entity”
Ahhh yes, the old reliable short term agency solution.
Recruitment is on going but under public service recruitment process is tedious to say least. The paper work around Garda vetting checking out professional qualifications etc is again time consuming! At least it’s happening
@Paul Murphy: ya rite!
@Paul Murphy: Paul the problem is the lack of applicants.
@Thomas Maher: ya think.. I work in the HSE. I gave three days interviewing 70 people for entry grade jobs in May. Garda clearance for one in the top ten has yet to come back! Until this comes back the agency person stays in place.
@Paul Murphy: Garda vetting takes about ten days, if you provide full information. If not, it will, of course, take much longer.
@David Murphey: it does unless you are a health worker and can take up to three months on average.
We need to privatise the entire health system. The government health budget should simply be spent on awarding contracts to private health companies, and on building physical infrastructure like hospitals. This would decimate the unions and allow much more flexibility and ultimately a better health service. At the moment we spend more per head on health than any country in the world except the US, and look at the rubbish results due to union intransigence and public sector inefficiencies.
Fverybody’s a Minister for Health.!!!
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