Staff shortages persist in the key service areas intended to be impacted by the HSE‘s move to five over seven day rostering despite increased overall numbers, a health sector union conference has been told.
Ashley Connolly of Fórsa said an “arbitrary” application of current resources would not be enough to allow a transition to the provision of more services over seven days across the HSE but unions are “willing” and “waiting” to talk to management about how any new system will work.
She was reacting to a message from Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to Fórsa’s health and welfare conference in Letterkenny in which the Minister for Health said she still intends the proposed changes will come into effect by the end of June.
“Working over seven days will help reduce our trolley numbers, reduce the time patients spend in hospital, speed up access to care and provide access to services in communities, not just in acute settings,” said Ms Carroll MacNeill.
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She said she was aware that talks between management and unions are planned in relation to the move in the coming weeks and said she looked forward to engaging with Fórsa and other staff representatives herself. However, she suggested that the aim of having the changes implemented by the end of next month still stood.
“The Government vision for health is to provide a seven-day, very balanced public service to the public, regardless of the day of the week that they get sick,” said the Minister. She said the HSE was planning for the delivery of all services “relevant to improving patient flow in emergency departments and outpatient services over seven days”.
Responding, Ms Connolly said the union had heard similar talks about the move to five over seven day rostering at its last health and welfare conference in Galway two years ago.
“Our message then was to affirm our willingness to engage in the discussion, and we expressed our readiness to discuss ideas. But nothing happened. No proposals were tabled, no ideas exchanged. Time passed, and we are still ready to talk, and to exchange ideas on how to action this ambitious plan for health service delivery, within the scope of existing resources,” she said.
“We also need to be clear eyed about the implications for managing the HSE’s human resources. Employment has increased, but we continue to be concerned about employment gaps in areas that will be key to the delivery of seven-day services.”
Speaking at the Irish Medical Organisation conference last month, HSE CEO Bernard Gloster said the health service workforce had grown by 25 per cent over the past five years and there was “no evidence to say that we’ve got the best use out of everything by having it all condensed between Monday and Friday, and then be dependent on an on-call, valuable, system at the weekend”.
He said at that time the intention was to introduce the rostering changes involved by the end of June but talks with the unions on the issue were subsequently deferred because the original time clashed with some of their conferences.
