HOSPITAL AND other health services face further cutbacks in the coming weeks after figures to be published today show that the Health Service Executive is heading for a €250 million overspend by the end of the year.
Minister for Health James Reilly said the HSE was facing “serious challenges” in tackling significant financial overruns.
The executive is expected to report today that it had a financial deficit of about €170 million up to the end of July. Highly-placed sources said that without remedial action, this figure could reach about €250 million by year-end.
Local hospital and health service area managers will be asked to draw up further plans aimed at bringing spending back into line.
The move is expected to result in more closures of hospital beds and further cuts in the use of agency staff and overtime.
However, sources said last night mangers had also been asked to prepare plans to limit home-help services.
The enhanced restrictions on recruitment, which were put in place in early August and due to be reviewed this month – including posts that were previously exempt from the Government’s moratorium on recruitment – are now expected to remain in place until the end of the year. However, exceptions will be made.
Separately, it is understood the HSE has asked the Department of Health to reimburse it for about €58 million arising from costs it incurred in the voluntary redundancy programme in the health service at the end of last year.
The new HSE figures, which were given to a meeting of the board on Wednesday, are understood to show that the pace of the over-spending in the organisation has slowed down – at the end of June the deficit was running at just over €200 million.
However, further cutbacks will be required if the HSE to break even by the end of the year.
Dr Reilly said last night that, against a backdrop of a situation where hospitals had carried forward a €70 million deficit from last year and given an overrun in activity levels in the first part of the year, “significant progress” had been made in the last six months in addressing the HSE’s financial difficulties.
However, he said that with the health service having €1 billion less to spend this year compared with last year, on top of these problems, it was facing “ serious challenges” before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the HSE has removed private practice rights from two hospital consultants on foot of allegations that they had been seeing too many private patients.
The HSE announced last Friday it had sent letters to a number of consultants informing them they could no longer charge private patients for treatments in its facilities.
The HSE contended doctors had breached their contracts which limit the number of fee-paying patients who can been treated.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association has strongly challenged the methodology used by the HSE in calculating private practice levels.
The HSE last week did not set out the number of consultants who had received such letters.
However, The Irish Timesunderstands that two senior doctors – one in Cork and one in Limerick – have effectively had their private practice rights removed.
Highly-placed sources said similar measures could be taken against other doctors in the weeks ahead.