Nurses conference: It is totally unfair for the public to see the number of administrators in the health service as the cause of all the problems in the sector, the new chief executive of the Health Service Executive has said.
Prof Brendan Drumm said that although there was a view that there were too many administrators in the sector, the fact was that when those in frontline jobs such as hospital secretaries were discounted, the number of administrators in the health service was about 3,300.
"It ain't that big . . . it's relatively small," he said.
"I'm not saying that doesn't have to change in a centralised service, it does, but it's a bit misleading to see it as a huge number of people."
Addressing a conference attended by senior nurses and midwives in Tullamore on Friday, he said there had been a "very negative hammering down on administrative staff as if they are the problems of this health system. They're not and it's totally unfair to see them as such. Doctors and nurses have benefited from the perception that it's all the administrators' fault," he added.
A number of reports have pointed to a dramatic increase in staffing in the health sector in recent years. They showed that between 1997 and 2001 administrative staff increased by nearly 70 per cent to 15,000. Over the same period, the service employed 26 per cent more doctors and 18 per cent more nurses.
Meanwhile, Prof Drumm also said he did not want staff to be afraid to take part in new initiatives in case they failed. In a week dominated by the PPARS fiasco, he did not want staff to think they could not make a mistake.
"If there's one thing I'm going to be saying to people in this organisation, it is to make mistakes. Get out there and do things for the right reason and you will be wrong on occasions but if they're done for the right reasons we've got to get in and support that. We've got to support people who are enthusiastic about change in the sure recognition that there will be errors along the way," he said.
He also defended his plan for four hospital networks rather than the 10 set up earlier this year. He said the plan was part of a review of the whole senior management structure of the HSE. He said there were four community care regions under new health service structures and it was felt there should be the same number of hospital networks.