Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Jun 2001

Vol. 539 No. 3

Written Answers. - Hospital Staffing.

Bernard J. Durkan

Question:

159 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Health and Children the degree to which adequate nursing and medical staff are available in respect of all hospitals; if he anticipates difficulties in meeting staff requirements in any specific area; the action or action he plans to address the issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19516/01]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin):

There are currently 3,209 NCHDs employed within the Irish public health service. The latest projections indicate that 3,164 – 98.6% – of these posts throughout the country will be filled on 1 July this year. This leaves 45 – 1.4% – of NCHD posts remaining to be filled. There is no evidence to indicate that certain specialties are experiencing particular difficulties. I am not aware of any particular difficulties in filling hospital consultant posts.

The Medical Manpower Forum was established to examine and address medical staffing difficulties. The Government has noted the recommendations of the report of this forum in relation to a consultant-delivered public hospital service and will consider these proposals again in the light of the results obtained from a costing study on the matter which is to be undertaken by a national task force on medical manpower, the establishment of which has been approved by the Government. The Government has also approved the commencement of negotiations with the relevant parties on core issues arising from the report, including flexibility-cover arrangements, teamworking etc.

The report of the Forum on Medical Manpower sets out proposals for the re-structuring of the medical workforce both in the context of changed work patterns and a consultant delivered service. The next stage is to quantify the costs, following which the Government will reconsider the proposals. A detailed quantification of the resource implications will now be undertaken. This assessment will form part of the functions of the national task force.

With regard to nursing vacancies the Health Service Employers Agency – HSEA – undertook a survey on 31 January 2001. The survey found that shortages are largely a difficulty in the greater Dublin area. The total number of nursing vacancies reported was 1,315. When account is taken of the service of agency nurses – 423 per day – and overtime working, equivalent to 592 nurses per day, the net vacancy situation pertaining at 31 January 2001 stands at 300. The number of nursing vacancies existing nationally on 30 September 2000 had fallen by 5% by 31 January 2001. The HSEA is finalising a survey in respect of the position at the end of April 2001. This survey is expected to show a further improvement in the position. Particular difficulty is being experienced in certain specialist areas including midwifery. I took this into account when announcing a major new recruitment and retention initiative, costing in excess of £5 million on 29 November 2000.

A new scheme of flexible working arrangements for nurses and midwives in the public health service came into operation on 1 February 2001. Under the scheme, individual nurses and midwives may apply to work between eight and 39 hours per week on a permanent part-time basis.

As part of my overall recruitment-retention strategy, I have introduced the following financial support for nurses and midwives undertaking post-registration educational courses: payment of fees to nurses-midwives undertaking part-time nursing and certain other undergraduate degree courses; improved scheme of financial support for student public health nurses; enhanced financial support package for student midwives and student paediatric nurses; payment of fees and enhanced salary to nurses-midwives undertaking courses in specialised areas of clinical practice; abolition of fees for "back-to-practice" courses and payment of salary to nurses/midwives undertaking such courses.

In response to the current shortage of nurses, I increased the number of training places last year by 300, from 1,200 to 1,500. This year a further 40 additional places have been created, bringing to 1,540 the total available nationally. It is intended to maintain the annual intakes of nursing students at this level to ensure an adequate supply of nurses for our health service into the future.

The Commission on Nursing identified a need to strengthen the workforce planning functions in my Department. In response, my Department set up a study of the nursing and midwifery resource in December 1998. The aim of the project is to analyse the present position with regard to the nursing and midwifery workforce, to devise a system for the projection of future needs and to plan how these needs may be met. The steering group published an interim report in September 2000, and the £5 million recruitment-retention initiative announced by me on 29 November last was my immediate response to recommendations contained in the report.

The steering group has identified as an urgent priority the refinement of systems and processes used to supply essential information to ensure that forecasts for future nursing and midwifery requirement are feasible and improve over time. Highlighted in the interim report are the inadequacies of existing databases to yield reliable information on which to base forecasts. To address this, work is progressing on the development of a new personnel, payroll, attendance recruitment system – PPARS – that will capture essential data on each individual and post within the health service. The PPARS project is a fundamental building block in developing dependable, reliable and robust quality information to forecast human resource requirements for the health service in the future.