Meaningless CUH assessment costs €38k

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) has spent almost €40,000 of taxpayers’ money to help it decide whether or not to go ahead with an accreditation exercise that may or may not help demonstrate its commitment to patient care.

International accreditation experts, Joint Commission International (JCI) was paid €38,000 for an eight-day on-site assessment of services at Cork University Hospital (CUH) — a meaningless preliminary exercise that did nothing to enhance the hospital’s standing unless a full audit is commissioned. The HSE has yet to decide whether to engage JCI for full and formal accreditation.

The significant spend on a potential accreditation process comes at a time when consultants at the hospital face the prospect of losing personal secretaries. From October, because of the ongoing embargo on recruitment of clerical staff, medical secretaries will be drawn from a pool shared between departments rather than individual consultants having a named secretary.