HSE to ban agency junior doctors

HOSPITALS will be barred from appointing any junior doctor agency workers from nextMonday, after senior HSE officials privately conceded plans to cut the short-term staff cost are failing.

Internal correspondence sent to all HSE regional directors and the health service’s finance director, Liam Woods, said the move is because the health service “cannot afford” the surging expense, set to hit €61 million by the year’s end.

The July 26 letter, which claimed the workload could be taken up by incoming Indian and Pakistani doctors, confirmed that in the first five months of this year, €5.1m was spent per month on short-term junior doctor jobs.

This is a 32% increase on the 2010 monthly average of €3.87m, and comes at a time when the HSE has warned it will be €400m over budget by December unless drastic action is taken.

In February, the HSE’s national director of human resources, Seán McGrath, said the agency doctor cost would fall by 22% this year.

The letter, from the national

director of integrated services Laverne McGuinness and assistant national HR director Rosarii Mannion, said: “At current levels, the projected spend on agency doctors for 2011 will reach €61m. This is a considerable cost increase for which we cannot afford.

“With effect from August 15, the practice of hiring locum NCHDs is to cease, except in exceptional circumstances.

“You are now requested to put in place robust control arrangements to ensure that no further agency and locum costs are incurred for junior medical staff.”

These controls include the “prior authorisation” of the HSE’s senior human resources and integrated services officials, “based on the recommendation” of regional directors.

The letter also stated that senior HSE management believe the workload will be taken up from “the middle of August” by the imminent appointments of junior doctors from India and Pakistan under a widely-publicised recruitment plan.

However, this has been questioned by the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, which said outstanding paperwork means these Asian doctors will not be available for “weeks or months”.

“It will take a significant number of weeks or months to validate the paperwork that proves that they are eligible to work in Ireland,” a spokesperson said.

He said these doctors will not be available to address “the worrying shortage of more experienced middle grade doctors”.