HSE boss plans to cut agency hours and may ask Government for more funds

CEO of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, said funding increases over recent years “allowed the HSE to respond to sustained pressures, but not yet to overcome all of them.”  File photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The HSE chief has warned it could need more money from the Government this year because of high medical inflation as well as energy and staffing costs.

Bernard Gloster also said it plans to slash agency staff hours by a third despite recruitment challenges. The plan says a saving of €250m is expected from this measure, along with €80m from converting agency staff to HSE staff.

The HSE published its national service plan for 2024 on Wednesday with a budget of €23.5bn. Mr Gloster spoke of a “significant acceleration” in costs. 

“I set out the conditions that will ultimately dictate the level of dependency we will have on additional support from Government in 2024,” he said. “Our starting position must be to demonstrate the best use of the significant resources we have.” 

He said funding increases over recent years “allowed the HSE to respond to sustained pressures, but not yet to overcome all of them.” 

It plans to improve control over spending. “This will include delivering savings, particularly through reducing the hours of agency staff used by around one third,” Mr Gloster said.

It means that we will need to increase productivity and safely see, assess, treat and care for more people with the same or less staff, without reducing service quality or overburdening our staff.

The service plan says staff “experienced increasing levels of stress and burnout, leading to loss of staff and morale concerns” after the pandemic.

It also highlighted as “a notable area of concern” the difference between staff numbers in community services and hospitals. By August 2021, "the staffing gap between community and acute services had tripled,” it said, which is “a reverse of the 2008 situation”.

However, some recruitment continues, including for Children’s Disability Network Teams. Overall, this year is expected to see recruitment of 683 new full-time disability staff and 2,268 staff for other health and social care services.

Some €162.8m is allocated for new developments as well as €918.7m in once-off funding.

Chair of the HSE board, Ciarán Devane, said over 2023 and 2024, the workforce will grow by around 9,000 full-time staff and funding by €3bn.

The budget allows for progress on the Planned Trauma Care Service at Cork University Hospital. It also provides for setting up an emergency department in the home frailty response service for older patients at University Hospital Limerick.