HSE recruitment ban may hit cancer services

DEVELOPMENTS in disability and cancer services could be held up this year because of the recruitment restrictions, the chief executive of the Health Service Executive has warned.

Prof Brendan Drumm said the health authority needed to shed 1,520 staff this year, but there had been slower uptake in early retirements, which was delaying the plan.

Speaking at the launch of the HSE’s annual report, he said the situation would present a challenge for new developments where recruitment was conditional onan overall head count being reduced.

He said the Croke Park Agreement, which guarantees pension entitlements for a further year, had led to a slow-down in applications for early retirement.

“Areas such as disability and cancer services, which are part of some development going forward, is where we are challenged. “We have to conform with the country’s economic plan and for us that means that a reduction in the number of people we employ has to be achieved,” he said.

Prof Drumm said the authority would the seeking to implement changes, including redeployment, provided for in the agreement within a matter of months, not years.

“We really do have to get people to move, otherwise we will end up with services that are over-manned in one place and undermanned in another, so from our point of view it has to be immediately put in train,” he said.

“There is a process to be gone through where people are personally informed so I suspect this will happen over a couple of months,” he said.

The 2009 report shows that a senior manager who retired from the health service following the abolition of his post with the formation of the HSE received a severance and ex-gratia payment of €158,664 with service increased by six years for pension and lump sum calculation.

A former health board chief executive who retired during the year received a severance payment of €65,155 and had his service increased by 10 years under a similar arrangement.

The report also shows that Prof Drumm was paid €334,000 last year, compared with €512,000 in 2008 – the majority of the reduction was due to him waiving a €93,000 performance-related bonus .

The health authority ended last year with a surplus of €79.6 million, but it had a total deficit of just under €1.1 billion.