HSE cuts shortfall estimate to €480m

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has revised the projected shortfall in its 2009 budget downwards from €1.2 billion to €480 million.

The new estimate, in line with the figure given by Health Minister Mary Harney recently, follows a meeting of the HSE board. A statement issued after the meeting said the estimate was in light of “the most recent monthly financial information available at the end of February”. The statement said the board had tasked the HSE with devising proposals to deliver e72m in savings on top of the e133m already identified.

Last night, HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm said the latest savings would impact on frontline services.

The e205m target is additional to the existing target for value-for-money savings of e250m provided for in the 2009 Service Plan and the continuation of the value-for-money e208m savings achieved last year.

The board said Ms Harney has asked the HSE to focus at this stage on the achievement of the e205m target and that the Government would consider the remaining projected shortfall of e275m “in the context of its overall deliberations” in the run-up to the Government’s emergency budget on April 7.

The new consultants’ contract will not be exempt from these deliberations, according to a spokesperson for Ms Harney. “Nothing has been ruled out. The situation is that every aspect of expenditure is being examined as part of the process of preparing the budget and clearly the consultants’ contract is one aspect of that,” the spokesperson said.

The HSE said it would continue to work with the Department of Health to “track the various cost pressures and the further steps that can be taken... without having an adverse impact on services”. The HSE has already announced it is to cut more than e40m in pay and allowances for nearly 5,000 junior doctors.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), which represents the junior doctors, called on the HSE to immediately reverse its decision. The IMO has a mandate for industrial action, up to and including all out strike, if the HSE imposes the cuts unilaterally.

“NCHDs [non consultant hospital doctors] are the only grade in the health service who work on temporary contracts into their 40s and who are required to work continuous shifts of 24, 56 and 72 hours without appropriate rest breaks,” said Dr John Morris, IMO vice president.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said measures to deal with the HSE funding shortfall “must start in the back room, must protect the front line and must revisit consultants’ pay which is due to increase”. Dr Reilly said redundancies in HSE back office staff and switching to generic drugs would save more than e300m.