|
|
|
|
|
HSE seeks €200m fund to cover dispute shortfalls
02 May 2010 By Susan Mitchell
A plan by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to create a €200 million fund to offset budget over-runs is the latest twist in a long-running dispute with unions.
The creation of the fund will involve cutting money from other parts of the health service, with figures on which services will be affected expected to be revealed this week. Brendan Drumm, chief executive of the HSE, said that industrial action by health staff meant that the HSE was unable to determine how its budget for this year was being spent.
‘‘We cannot continue to trade recklessly," said Drumm.
The HSE said the fund would be used to cover any shortfall that may have emerged due to the refusal by members of the Impact trade union to collate and provide financial data.
This is expected to involve the cancellation of elective admissions to hospitals and cuts in home help hours and packages.
Impact had maintained that its actions had not had any effect on the provision of healthcare. However, the industrial action is delaying services in some areas, such as the nursing home sector, where the processing of applications for the Fair Deal scheme has slowed.
Some €152 million was allocated to the Fair Deal scheme for this year, but Tadhg Daly, chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, said some applicants had been waiting for approval since the scheme was launched last October.
Delays in processing applications are having a knock-on effect on the ability of hospitals to reduce the number of ‘bed blockers’, who are in hospital because no other appropriate facility is available.
The processing of medical cards has also been affected by the industrial action, with the HSE claiming that Impact staff were directing many calls that should be handled locally to the head office in Dublin.
At hospital level, managers do not know whether key performance targets are being met - such as the four-week target for urgent colonoscopies.
With the HSE and Impact in deadlock, it would appear the worst is yet to come. The decision to create the €200 million fund came amid mounting concerns by HSE management that it would face a huge deficit if the industrial action continued.
The HSE asked Impact to suspend the industrial action in relation to the processing of financial data, but Impact refused and talks broke down at the Labour Relations Commission last week. Impact national secretary Kevin Callinan said it was ‘‘unrealistic’’ to expect a change in the situation before the union secured clarifications on aspects of the Croke Park agreement on public sector pay and reform.
‘‘We need clarification before we can ballot, but the HSE has been obfuscating and fudging," Callinan said last week. As pressure mounted, Impact urged its 30,000 members in the health service to show solidarity with colleagues who were being pressurised into abandoning industrial action with warnings of possible disciplinary action.
The union claimed there was a ‘‘clear attempt to intimidate individuals and groups of members’’ by the HSE and Minister for Health Mary Harney.
She said last week that the first savings in the health service had to come ‘‘from those who are not doing their job’’. The HSE believes that Impact members have gone beyond a work-to-rule and are not carrying out core duties. Callinan refused to be drawn on whether processing financial data was a core duty.
Callinan said Impact’s main concern was the effect the Croke Park agreement would have on an agreement reached in 2004, when the HSE was being set up. Among the union’s demands is an assurance that the proposed agreement, which runs to 2014, does not override a previous deal that guaranteed permanent pensionable jobs to Impact members to the age of 65.
Impact sought clarification on the standardisation of employment conditions in the Croke Park deal, including annual leave and working hours, as well as details on redeployment, pensions and outsourcing.
It also raised questions about different arrangements that apply for holidays and sick leave provision between staff who are HSE employees and those who work for voluntary hospitals and agencies that are funded by the HSE.
The HSE contended that the union was trying to rewrite the agreement. The HSE board has expressed concern over the impact the action is having on the day-to-day running of the health service and on budget projections. It met last weekend and again last Friday night to discuss the problem.
With a budget of €14.3 billion, the HSE is critical to the current exchequer savings drive, yet management told the board that they did not know whether it was making headway on the €400 million savings it needed to make this year.
|
|
|
