Watchdog warns 'exhausted workforce' is one of biggest risks facing health services

'One of the biggest risks and concerns in the health service at the minute is essentially the workforce. They are exhausted.' Picture: iStock

An “exhausted workforce” is one of the biggest risks facing the health services right now, a senior Hiqa official has warned.

Hiqa (Health Information and Quality Authority) recently launched an inspection programme for public hospitals, expanding on residential care inspections.

Sean Egan, director of healthcare regulation at Hiqa, said the pandemic put services under pressure and staff are still carrying the brunt of this.

“One of the biggest risks and concerns in the health service at the minute is essentially the workforce. They are exhausted,” he said.

Sean Egan, director of healthcare regulation at Hiqa said the pandemic put services under pressure and staff are still carrying the brunt of this.

“They need to be supported and it is something we will be looking to identify through our inspections, looking at how services are supporting their workforce to perform.” 

He said staff wellbeing should be supported under existing standards, and they hope to “shine a light” on where this is not happening.

We find that services that perform well have very good and strong governance structures, simple and clear lines of accountability and responsibility,” 

he said.

“We find that those services perform better, and even if things go wrong they are able to respond in an appropriate, rapid way to make things safer.”

They do not have enforcement powers for hospitals yet, but will publish inspection reports and can highlight issues to the HSE and department of health.

It is not a regulatory system for managers but he said: “It’s not to say that through licensing legislation that wouldn’t happen down the line.” 

The inspections' remit could be expanded as additional legislation makes its way through the Oireachtas, including the Patient Safety Bill 2019.

In the UK, managers at regulated health facilities must register with the Care Quality Commission.

“It is to be determined as to whether that would come into licensing legislation in Ireland in due course. There is potential for that but it isn’t there currently,” he said.

Hiqa carried out an unannounced inspection of the under-pressure emergency department at University Hospital Limerick in mid-March.

Mr Egan could not comment on this as a report is being prepared but said it "was an early step into the application of this new inspection methodology”.