Just 2,000 staff take up HSE’s redundancy offer

JUST over 2,000 people have left the HSE under its once-off voluntary redundancy and severance schemes — which had targeted as many as 5,000 departures to save the system €400 million.

A full breakdown of the regional figures, seen by the Irish Examiner, shows the HSE’s plans to significantly reduce staff levels has fallen almost 3,000 people below its goal.

Between November 2, when then Health Minister Mary Harney first offered the scheme to 28,000 workers, and December 31, a total of 2,003 managers and administrators availed of the money-saving plans.

Any of these workers over 50-year-old were offered to retire on a full pension based on years of service or three weeks’ pay per year of service under the plans.

The HSE South saw by far the highest amount of departures, with 447 deciding to take early retirement — including almost a third of all senior managers.

However, despite the situation, the schemes have now been left open to significant criticism after falling far short of their target.

According to the figures, by the end of December, 641 people had taken early retirement in the HSE, with a further 1,362 being accepted for voluntary severance packages.

These included 1,409 applicants who worked directly for the state health service (533 early retirement, 876 voluntary severance) and 594 non-HSE staff (108 early retirement, 486 voluntary severance).

One out of every five assistant national directors (25 out of 121) overseeing the running of the health service vacated their posts — which, under the terms of the money-saving scheme, will not be re-filled.

A further 21% of general managers (39 out of 183) nationwide and 15% of Grade 8 managers (75 out of 484) who would be receiving six figure sum salaries, also left the system.

Changes at management administrative level were also detailed in the figures, with this category accounting for the most people who took up the once-off voluntary departure offer.

By the end of December, 1,364 backroom health service staff and 639 general support staff had handed in their notice, including 967 management administrative workers directly employed for the HSE and a further 397 non-HSE officials.

The HSE South, which expects to see up to 1,000 people leave by the end of this year, had the single highest departure rate for any region, with 447 staff leaving, including 260 management administrative workers.

The HSE West (421 departures), HSE Dublin North East (279) and HSE Dublin Mid-Leinster (262) also reported departures.

Since December 2008, the HSE South has shed a significant number of staff posts. During the period, 32.2% of senior managers left the system compared to 10% of “general administrative grades” and 6.5% of other administrative staff.

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