Government will need to recruit 12,500 staff to implement winter plan

HSE CEO Paul Reid has appealed for the public to protect themselves so that they can protect the health service this winter. Picture: Leon Farrell

The Government hopes an injection of €600m in funding for health services will ease pressure on Covid and non-Covid care this winter. However, the success of the HSE’s winter plan will be contingent on recruiting 12,500 additional staff and ensuring Covid-19 does not overwhelm our hospitals.

The stark lack of detail on where new hospital and community beds will be opened this winter and on staffing requirements for new beds and services, however, did little to inspire confidence that the health service is ready and primed to stave off the many challenges that lie ahead.

Ordinarily, hospitals see more patients attending during the winter period, with 100,000 to 120,000 attendances and 25,000 admissions to hospital emergency departments per month.

This year, Covid-19 brings with it multiple challenges and layers of complexity.

First, there is the growing backlog of 840,000 patients on waiting lists because of the pause on appointments and procedures during the emergency phase of the pandemic.

Then there is the requirement to operate Covid and non-Covid services while also running the service at reduced capacity and taking longer to treat and care for patients.

There is also the prospect of the usual winter trolley crisis, which can see 250 to 350 patients waiting for a bed, by the HSE’s own figures, on any given day during the winter.

In recent weeks we have seen the number of patients on trolleys exceed 200 and move closer to a ‘business as usual’ level.

Add to this the rise in Covid-19 cases, the concerns that our hospitals could become overwhelmed this winter come as no surprise.

This concern was addressed by HSE CEO Paul Reid when he appealed for the public to protect themselves so that they can protect the health service this winter.

His comments are another admission that the service is under-resourced and does not have the capacity to manage ‘normal’ demand let alone the additional challenges posed by a pandemic.

All in all, the outlook is grim. This could indeed be a winter of discontent and hardship for those working on the frontline, who are already exhausted and burnt out after six months at the coalface of Covid-19.

Health officials have themselves conceded that recruitment targets to take on an additional 12,500 staff come with a "health warning", while Health Minister Stephen Donnelly accepted that even with the winter plan, waiting lists could rise further.

This year, has already been a tough one and in many respects, the health service has managed the Covid-19 challenges well so far.

There is, however, a long road ahead this winter and patients and staff need some certainty that the ambitions of the winter plan are not merely fantasy.

Better communication and further information on where additional capacity and staff will be provided would go some way to restoring confidence in this €600m plan.