Lack of clarity over HSE and department roles, says report

NEARLY six years since its creation the HSE has yet to adequately clarify its roles and responsibilities in relation to the Department of Health, according to a government report.

The Organisational Review Programme (ORP), which was established in 2007 by the Department of the Taoiseach to report on public service modernisation, published its second report yesterday covering the Department of Health and Children as well as three state agencies.

In relation to the department, the report found it “an organisation in transition” with still a lack of clarity in many areas between its and the HSE’s functions.

The report added that the department “evidently has some way to go yet to adapt to its new role and to shape itself as a 21st century health ministry”.

The report also found that “another key issue” was that “staff are allocated across the department in a very unbalanced way. It is clear, particularly at the more junior levels, that some staff are overwhelmed with work while at the same time some staff in other areas have little or nothing to do”. The report found “a real reluctance at middle management levels to tackle this problem”.

Despite many of its functions being taken over by the HSE there were 433 staff employed by the Department of Health in April.

In a statement from the Department of the Taoiseach Brian Cowen said “while the report identifies good practice in a number of areas, for example customer service and utilisation of ICT, it also identifies particular challenges in human resource management and performance evaluation”.

He said he will ask the new Public Service Board to advise him on a robust “look back” process to ensure that the specific commitments in action plans submitted by the reviewed departments and agencies “are fully delivered”.