THE HEALTH Service Executive will have to cut two non-consultant doctor posts in hospitals for every new consultant appointed, under new employment rules set out by the Department of Health.
In a directive issued earlier this week the HSE was told that it will have to terminate posts, on a one-for-one basis, in non-priority areas to meet the cost of appointing several hundred new frontline therapists, psychologists and social workers.
The department said the HSE could employ a maximum of 110,850 whole-time equivalent staff this year. However, it warned that this figure could not be exceeded in any circumstances and that it would be reduced later in the year.
The HSE was informed that with effect from March 26th, until further notice, there would be “a general moratorium on the recruitment, promotion and acting appointments to all management and administrative grades” as well as in most other health-sector positions.
The directive said that there needed to be a rebalancing of numbers between consultant and non-consultant posts in hospitals. It said this was to provide for the introduction of a consultant-delivered service and “to free up resources to contribute to the cost of this service”.
“Any new post of hospital consultant will therefore generally be created by the suppression of two non-consultant hospital doctor posts ”, it said.
The department said existing vacancies in therapy, counsellor, social workers and emergency medical technician grades could be filled, provided the HSE was satisfied there was no scope to redeploy personnel from equivalent positions in the hospital sector to the community services.
New posts could also be created in these grades to meet primary and community care needs and particularly those of the elderly and people with disabilities.
The new directive allowed for the appointment of up to 450 speech and language, occupational and physiotherapists as well as up to 250 clinical psychologists, behavioural therapists and counsellors. It provided for up to 270 new social worker posts and it said that in certain circumstances up to 30 emergency medical technician posts could be created and filled.