THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) is to reconfigure its employment structures over the next two years so that significantly more staff are working in frontline areas and particularly in the community sector.
The move, which will see a significant shift in posts away from the hospital sector and towards the community, forms part of a deal reached with the Department of Finance and the Department of Health which will allow HSE employment levels to increase by 1,050 this year.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen told the Dáil earlier this month (while still Minister for Finance) in reply to Labour's Róisín Shortall that he had sanctioned the additional posts for services for the elderly, palliative care, disability, cancer and population health. He said that this would bring the total numbers that could be officially employed in the health service to 112,560 by the end of 2008.
He said the deal also included a two-year reconfiguration target which required the HSE to reconfigure the numbers employed towards frontline services and towards the community side of healthcare. He said this was in line with the HSE's policy of developing an integrated approach to healthcare.
"In this regard, the HSE will be required to redeploy over 2,000 posts to PCCC and over 250 posts from HSE Corporate to frontline services," he said.
In a statement yesterday, the HSE said a significant element of its transformation programme was to move resources and staff from the National Hospitals Office (NHO) to PCCC.
It said that approved employment ceilings were currently being reviewed to give effect to this strategy and would also set out targets for the reconfiguration challenge for both the NHO and PCCC over the period to the end of 2009.
It is expected that by the end of the reconfiguration period in 2009, employment levels for the NHO will need to be reduced to circa 51,000 whole-time equivalents (WTEs) while PCCC will grow to near to 56,000 whole-time equivalents.
The number of staff employed by the HSE has been falling steadily in recent months on foot of recruitment restrictions introduced in a bid to allow it to live within its official budget.
The Irish Times revealed yesterday that there were now nearly 2,700 fewer personnel on the HSE payroll than there were last autumn.
A report given to the HSE board last week shows that the actual numbers employed at the end of the first quarter were about 500 below the official employment ceiling.
The HSE said yesterday that the suggestion that 2,700 posts were unfilled since the introduction of controversial recruitment restrictions last autumn was misleading as employment levels fluctuated over time for a variety of reasons.
However, the financial report given to the HSE board last week stated that the majority of the staffing cuts were due to the recruitment pause last year and the tighter employment controls currently in place.