Health service faces funding shortfall of €180m

The Health Service Executive is facing a shortfall of about €180 million in the level of State funding it believes is required to run health services around the State this year.

Members of the board of the executive, which took over control of the health services from the health boards last month, were given details of the potential funding problems by senior officials at a meeting last week.

Sources close to the executive said the potential funding shortfall was estimated by officials to be around 1½ per cent of its total exchequer allocation.

The Government will this year provide over €11 billion to the executive to run services around the State.

Sources close to the executive said it would seek to reduce the projected shortfall through greater efficiency. One of the principles behind the centralisation of services under the executive, as part of the Government's overall healthcare reforms, was to generate increased efficiencies. A new internal group was established in recent weeks within the executive to look at this issue.

The executive sources said it was hoped that the funding shortfall could be addressed without affecting services for patients or clients.

However, sources said the main areas set out for development by Minister for Health Mary Harney in the current year, including services for the elderly, primary care and accident and emergency, will not be affected in any way.

A spokesman for Ms Harney said that the issue of any potential funding shortfall would be examined as part of the consideration by the Department of Health of the draft national service plan - the blueprint for services to be provided around the country this year - drawn up by the executive.

The draft national service plan, which was submitted to the Department of Health by the executive last Thursday, must be considered by the Tánaiste over the next three weeks.