Outspoken HSE critic to lose core funding

A patient advocacy group vocal in its criticism of health service failures, has had its funding pulled by the HSE.

The Irish Patients Association, which has received annual funding of €117,000 from the HSE for the past number or years, is to lose that core funding from next April.

IPA chairman Stephen McMahon said the HSE move would “immediately impact on approximately 500 patient cases”.

These include cases with extremely serious concerns around “unexplained deaths, injury, late diagnosis, complaints to regulators, and outstanding requests with the HSE advocacy unit for independent reviews”.

A second patient advocacy group, Patient Focus, has not been affected by changes in funding.

A spokesperson confirmed that Patient Focus continues to receive its annual fund of €216,000.

Another organisation, set up in August, called Patients for Patient Safety, will also be funded in 2013.

The HSE said the IPA’s work in the area of advocacy was “limited” and that the association was advised by the HSE last year to seek alternative funding streams.

“IPA was formally notified in Nov 2012 that funding would cease on Mar 31, 2013,” said a HSE spokesperson. “The HSE understands that the Irish Patients Association has funding through private sources.”

Mr McMahon said the organisation was now “between a rock and a hard place”.

He said the IPA receives up to €17,000 from pharmaceutical companies, which goes towards “ancillary costs” such as office equipment, but that the core funding went towards the salaries of the IPA’s three and a half whole-time equivalents.

“Our concern is that we deal directly with patients who have had pretty traumatic experiences, and while we might have expected some form of cut, we certainly didn’t expect to lose 100% of our core funds,” said Mr McMahon.

The IPA received some funds from the Department of Health when it was set up in 2004, but that ended a number of years ago. The IPA also had a service level agreement with the HSE.

Funds for the first quarter of 2013 (up to Mar 31) have been paid but the IPA has been told no further funds are available.

The association has appealed to Health Minister James Reilly to intervene and review the HSE decision.

The IPA has been critical of many health service failures, including delays in patient treatment, poor hospital hygiene, and deficits in care of the elderly. The association has actively promoted a charter of rights for patients.

The HSE said reductions in funding “have been applied to all HSE-funded services in 2013” and that it had “targeted savings on areas that do not directly impact client/patient services”.

Mr McMahon said the current funding situation was “grossly unfair as the process to choose HSE-preferred patient advocacy groups was neither transparent nor negotiable”.