‘He was keen to solve whatever problem stood in the way’

PAT HARVEY, the former chair of the national steering committee for the PPARS project, has a reputation as a go-ahead and dynamic health executive, though one who has sometimes courted controversy for his direct approach.

Mr Harvey retired as chief executive of the North-Western Health Board (NWHB) in April when the country’s 11 health agencies were morphed into the national Health Services Executive (HSE).

For most health board chief executives, the restructured health services did not offer equivalent positions of seniority. Many, like Mr Harvey, opted for the generous retirement package of two years’ salary.

Mr Harvey came up through the ranks in the NWHB. He held a series of management roles, including manager of Sligo General Hospital, before succeeding Manus Ward as chief executive of the health board.

According to one senior medical source in the Sligo area, the NWHB under Mr Harvey’s stewardship was “one of the most progressive in the country”.

“I must say that my assessment is that he was beneficial to the health services in the region. He was a get-up-and-go type. He was always keen to solve whatever problem stood in the way,” the source said.

The only controversy of note in which Mr Harvey was involved concerned an examination by the public finance watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), into the construction of the new NWHB headquarters in Manorhamilton.

When the matter came up at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last year, the C&AG John Purcell told the committee that the NWHB had signed contracts for the new buildings before it had obtained any approval for its funding.

An audit of the NWHB’s accounts in 2001 showed that the board had signed a formal contract with an Omagh-based construction firm in March of that year. But no approval had been sought for the project from the Department of Health.

Construction work had commenced on the building before the department became aware of the project.

Mr Harvey strongly defended the decision to go ahead with the project on the basis that it was “essentially self-financing.”

At the PAC hearing, he said it had been the board’s deliberate intention not to seek funding for the building under the National Development Plan (NDP).

He had also said that it was the belief of the health board that it would have no difficulty in obtaining loan approval from the Department of Health because the project made sound business sense.

However, the Department of Health took a radically different view of the way in which the project had proceeded. An official told the PAC that approval was “never going to be a runner, irrespective of the merits of the case” because all capital projects like this one needed to be approved under the NDP.

Mr Purcell, for his part, said approval should have been in place. If projects like this were allowed to proceed without approval, the entire service would be left in a “mire”, he said.

That said, while getting what amounted to a slap on the wrist, Mr Harvey’s action did elicit some sympathy from TDs on the PAC who spoke of projects being shelved indefinitely because of excessive bureacracy.

The former chief executive also became involved in other health-related projects including co-chairing the National Partnership Forum, which supported the industrial relations partnership model within the health services.

But it was his appointment as chairman of the PPARS national steering committee that has once again put him in focus. The steering committee is comprised of representatives of all the health agencies.

One of its key roles was to oversee the complex task of standardising PPARS across the 11 former health boards areas.

Since his departure from his job, Mr Harvey has been involved in a project to construct an 80-bed private hospital in Letterkenny.