Gabrielle McFadden
Question:342. Deputy Gabrielle McFadden asked the Minister for Health the regional breakdown in the number of Health Service Executive employed community audiologists working in the respective HSE regions. [42816/14]
View answerTuesday, 11 November 2014
Questions (342, 344)
Gabrielle McFadden
Question:344. Deputy Gabrielle McFadden asked the Minister for Health his plans to increase the number of HSE employed community audiologists working in the respective HSE regions. [42818/14]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 342 and 344 together.
The number of community audiologists working for the HSE is as follows:
|
HSE Region |
Audiology WTE |
|
HSE South |
17 |
|
HSE West |
17.8 |
|
HSE DML |
11 |
|
HSE DNE |
10.89 |
|
TOTAL |
56.69 |
The National Audiology Review Group report recommended integrated working between acute care and community care audiology staff. This is under way in a number of areas with sharing of workload and staff rostering.
In the past three years the number of WTE audiologists in place across the integrated community and acute services has increased from 72 to 92. In addition, revised governance structures have been established, including the recruitment of a National Clinical Lead for Audiology and 4 Assistant National Clinical Leads. The HSE sponsored students to complete an M.Sc. programme and 9 of these graduates are now in HSE posts. The current HSE focus is on filling any vacant posts and standardising work processes to ensure that an efficient service is provided across the country in a performance management framework.