Plan to cut 600 health service jobs almost complete

A Government plan to slash 600 jobs from the nation’s health service is nearing completion, it emerged today.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) will fully identify which positions should be cut from the sector by the end of this month.

It is believed most of the staff reductions will be in the eastern, western and southern health regions as part of a plan announced earlier this year.

Just days after Professor Brendan Drumm took over as the new head of the HSE, a spokesman said: “There are going to be no redundancies, when certain posts become vacant they won’t be filled again. They will be identified by the end of the month.”

The HSE spokesman confirmed no frontline posts would be among the 600 jobs targeted in the sector which employs 100,000 people.

The HSE said it expected to be able to reduce staff numbers by around 600 as a result of the consolidation of the 11 health boards into one unified national agency.

The spokesman said: “This reduction will be achieved through natural wastage and the non-filling of vacancies and will apply to administration and backroom functions.

“These reductions will not affect front-line services to patients nor will they apply to new posts being created by the HSE in 2005 under the A&E and the Intellectual Disability development plans.

“The reductio in posts shall focus on those areas where opportunities arise for the co-ordination of services and where the economies of scale of the new national structure allow for such reductions.”

Last February, the Health Department said it was moving to cut hundreds of administrative jobs to allow for the recruitment of other frontline personnel.

Health Minister Mary Harney had told the HSE that all necessary steps should be taken to meet the Government targets for reductions in public service numbers.