HSE pays €1.5m a day to fill staff gap

THE HSE says it is spending €1.5 million a day on staff overtime and agency workers, but claims that the recruitment ban causing these costs is saving the state money.

Figures revealed by the Department of Health show that, between March 1, 2010, and March 31, 2011, health service officials paid €539m to fill staff shortages in the system.

This cost is higher than at any time since the HSE was set up in 2004.

The expense — which equates to €1.5m a day — includes €308.3m on staff overtime and €230.6m for agency workers brought in to temporarily fill positions left empty due to the recruitment freeze.

A breakdown of the costs — borne by the taxpayer at the same time that drastic cuts were being imposed — were provided to Michael McCarthy, Labour TD for Cork South West.

They include:

* €241.9m on medical and dental workers (€184.67m for overtime, €57.23m for agency staff).

* €144.5m for nursing (€58.83, €85.7m).

* €98.2m for support services (€45.33m, €53.95m).

* €29.4m for paramedical services (€4.66m, €24.86m).

* €16.2m for management or administrative workers (€7.92m, €8.3m).

* €7.3m for maintenance and technical specialists (€6.83m, €554,280).

As revealed by the Irish Examiner in March, between 2005 and the end of last year, health service management spent over €1.1 billion on staff overtime — the equivalent of €500,000 every day.

This is based on costs of €112.3m during 2005 (€307,671 a day), €118.1m during 2006 (€323,561 a day), €241.6m during 2007 (€661,917 a day), €248.2m in 2008 (€680,000 a day) and €225.7m during 2009 (€618,356 a day).

The overtime figure for March 2010 to March 2011 was €308.27m, or €884,575 every day.

Despite Freedom of Information requests, the breakdown for agency worker costs over the course of the HSE’s existence — including payments received by the companies involved — has not yet been revealed.

During the same year as the €539m overtime and agency worker payment, more than €14.6m was paid out to 773 retired former health service employees who returned to some form of work within the system.

A total of €8.7m of this went to nurses at a time when the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has confirmed that hundreds of recently qualified students were either working for free, spending long periods on the dole or emigrating due to lack of work.

A November 2009 HSE internal audit found the service was potentially spending 35% more in finding agency workers than putting people on staff payrolls.