HSE falls short of costs target for agency staff

The Health Service Executive has fallen spectacularly short of its target of cutting agency staff costs by 50% this year, as the actual spend is set to top the €219m spent in 2011.

Failure to reduce the “unaffordable reliance” on agency staff, as outlined in the HSE’s 2012 National Service Plan, adds further pressure to a health service running a €399m deficit and in need of a supplementary budget. The average monthly cost of agency staff to September this year was €18.3m.

Yesterday, former junior health minister Róisín Shortall said it made “no sense” to encourage an exodus from the health service under an incentivised early retirement scheme if posts then had to be filled with agency staff.