CHI boss told of HSE takeover just hours before news was made public

Lucy Nugent was informed on Tuesday evening, just hours before the news was made public early yesterday. File picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos

The chief executive of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) was told just hours in advance that the HSE would be taking over its hospitals, the health minister said.

Lucy Nugent was informed on Tuesday evening, just hours before the news was made public early yesterday, Jennifer Carroll McNeill told the Irish Examiner.

Ms Carroll MacNeill announced on Wednesday that the three CHI hospitals would fall under the HSE from 2027.

Some staff only heard the news as they went to work, having missed an early morning email from CHI alerting them to the development.

It will take 12 to 18 months for the required legislation.

Ms Carroll MacNeill decided she wanted CHI to be integrated into the HSE “in recent weeks, since coming back [in] August”.

“I’ve said it in the Dáil, this is something that I have been open to. People have raised this with me and, if you look at my answers, it was always in the space of ‘I hear you, and I am reflecting on that’,” she said.

“I think the evidence of my early decision-making around the appointments to the board is evidence of a direction of travel that made more sense to me.”

Ms Carroll MacNeill said CHI already includes three hospitals — Temple St, Crumlin, and Tallaght — under its banner. She said it is time to “further integrate paediatric care formally into the HSE” ahead of the move to the new National Children’s Hospital.

The minister said she has spent “some months” reviewing governance structures in the health service.

HSE chief Bernard Gloster said it was a “very natural, progressive step”, and that he does not have “any worries about this whatsoever”.

He also said CHI staff are already on HSE terms and conditions.

Una Keightley, the co-founder of the Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Paediatric Advocacy Group, called for transparency on the plan.

“In April, after the damning Hiqa report into children’s spinal surgeries, Taoiseach Micheál Martin stood on the floor of the Dáil and said he backed the CHI board,” she said.

“Now, just five months on, the whole organisation is being subsumed into the HSE — this is a complete U-turn by the Government.”

Speaking in New York, Tánaiste Simon Harris said: “It’s something that I’ve been very supportive about, something I’ve been talking to the minister for quite a period of time about.

“CHI was established to do an important job of bringing together three hospitals, and that job is done, so it’s about the next phase.”

The Irish Medical Council has begun meeting CHI staff and management about standards of doctor training. It is believed this is arising from claims of bullying in an unpublished report widely covered in the media, including the Irish Examiner, earlier this year.

The council approves training sites for interns and medical education. A team is assessing each CHI hospital against its standards.

It said it is meeting clinical staff, interns, and trainees as well as management and HR staff. It can make recommendations for improvement if necessary.