Policy meant staff could not be replaced ‘regardless of the impact on services’
THE OPERATION of controls on employment levels in the Health Service Executive (HSE) last year created a process of “uncontrolled downsizing” in many instances, senior management in the organisation has stated.
In a circular to senior health service and voluntary hospital managers, the HSE’s national director of human resources, Seán McGrath, said the 2009 Employment Control Framework had led to a situation where, in many instances, staff could not be replaced in a timely fashion “regardless of the impact on services and clinical risk”.
The framework has been driven, in particular, by the Government’s general moratorium on recruitment and promotion.
“For the health sector, this is unsustainable and too high a risk for patients and clients. Patient safety is clearly a key priority and therefore it must be ensured that where staff leave the health services, local managers at all levels must be in a position to make the decisions necessary in a timely fashion to deliver this safe service,” he said in the circular sent last week.
Mr McGrath said this year the HSE would be devolving the operation of the general moratorium on recruitment and promotion to regional level “in order to support the delivery of this safe service while at the same time continuing to seek reductions in the numbers employed”. He added: “This devolution will allow local clinicians and managers balance where the appropriate employment or recruitment of resources is required while at the same time meeting the reductions in the numbers employed.”
It was reported in The Irish Timesthat as part of a new employment control framework for 2010 the Government wants the HSE to cut the number of full-time posts by 1,520 this year.
By the end of 2012, a total of 4,560 full-time posts are to go, under the terms of the new employment directive which was agreed between the Department of Health and the Department of Finance.
While in general the moratorium on recruitment will remain in force, the Government will allow the HSE to appoint an additional 265 staff to facilitate the implementation of the Ryan report on child abuse.
Controversially, the new employment directive insists that 79 posts in the cancer control service, which had been earmarked mainly for the development of the planned radiation oncology programme, can be filled only if a similar number of posts of equivalent salary value are suppressed in non-priority areas elsewhere.
On a similar basis, up to 380 additional posts, as well as replacement positions, can be filled in the areas of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.
The directive says that up to 300 additional posts in the social work field as well as replacement positions can be filled, as can 230 clinical psychology, behavioural therapy and counsellor posts.
The employment control document also says that up to 100 psychiatric nurse positions can be filled to support the implementation of the Vision for Changestrategy.