HSE accused of concealing scale of waiting list crisis

Cork East TD Liam Quaide challenges Bernard Gloster, saying the HSE has given 'what seemed like deliberately vague responses' on staffing levels

HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster promised to respond to Liam Quaide's query about the number of psychology posts.  File picture: Arthur Ellis

The HSE has been accused of giving TDs and senators "threadbare" answers to important enquiries regarding waiting lists in "an attempt to conceal the scale of the crisis".

The health service came under fire at the Oireachtas disabilities committee from Social Democrats TD for Cork East, Liam Quaide, for allegedly attempting to “conceal where services are threadbare or non-existent" by using “what seemed like deliberately vague responses” in answer to queries about staffing levels around the country for primary care services.

Such services, particularly in access to psychology, have seen spiralling waiting lists in recent years, with inadequate staffing often cited as a major reason behind that trend.

Addressing HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster, Mr Quaide said when seeking details on waiting list levels, people waiting longest were categorised as having been on a list for more than 52 weeks.

That could conceivably legitimately account for someone waiting for 10 years as well as two years, Mr Quaide said.

Cork East Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide described as 'farcical' the HSE's response to a query about psychology posts for older adult mental health services. 

Mr Quaide, a former psychologist working for the HSE, said that he knew from personal experience that “discipline managers routinely record much more meaningful waits”, yet his responses were still only answered in vague terms. He said: 

It's hard not to see that as an attempt to conceal the scale of the crisis. 

Noting that he had raised the same issue with Mr Gloster last June, Mr Quaide said that a recent response to a parliamentary question requesting a breakdown of psychology posts for older adult mental health services — refused by the HSE as unanswerable — “is just farcical”.

In response, Mr Gloster — who is due to leave his post early next month — replied that “there’s unequivocally no reason why any head of psychology shouldn't be asked to say what is the number of their approved funded posts and what's the care group breakdown of them".

Promise to respond to TD

“That shouldn't take half an hour to answer,” he said. “I don’t know what the issue is. I’m not going to try to defend that.

Mr Gloster said that since the HSE’s structure was changed to six regional health areas, “there may be a bit of a row going on” in the northeast of the country “about who owns what”.

“But the rest of the country should be a very straightforward process,” he said. 

“I promise you, I will come back to you with an answer on the number of psychology posts... and I will come back to you before I go, which is a very short time. And you can hold me to that.”

Mr Quaide had previously called on disabilities minister Mary Butler and incoming HSE chief executive Anne O’Connor to address the “blatant pattern of evasion and concealment in parliamentary question responses”.

In response, at the time, a HSE spokesperson said that “there are occasions where this data is not held on our central systems, and therefore there is a significant data gathering exercise to source this information”.