HSE top-level management structure to change

Top-level management in the HSE is to be restructured as part of a series of reforms drawn up by its director general, Tony O'Brien.

New posts of chief operations officer and chief strategy and planning officer are to be established while some existing national director positions are to be discontinued.

In a confidential report sent to HSE chiefs last week, Mr O’Brien said the current directorate system, in place for three years, had provided a platform on which to move forward so that “we look, feel and act more like the health service’s future than the HSE’s past”.

He said while progress on some key objectives had been “slower than we would have liked, it is worth noting that much has been achieved”.

“We have seen the development of an external consensus on the need for a longer-term health strategy at political level and secured an unprecedented mid-year budget revision this year, ending the destructive underfunding/ deficit spiral of the past.

“Overall we collectively lead a health system that is much more productive than in the past, but also experiencing unprecedented demand and unmet need.”

Open competition

Mr O’Brien said the new chief operations officer and chief strategy and planning officer positions would be filled by open competition through the Public Appointment Service. When these were filled, the existing interim HSE deputy director general arrangements would end.

The roles of national directors for primary care, mental health, social care and health and wellbeing will be subsumed into a new role of national director for community health services, to be filled by a serving senior official.

A new role of national medical director is to be filled by open competition. The posts of national director for clinical strategy and programmes and national director for quality improvement will be subsumed into this new position.

National directors in charge of community health services, acute services, ambulance services, the primary care reimbursement service and the special delivery unit will report to the chief operations officer.

The number of national directors reporting directly to the director general will be reduced from 17 to about eight.