The original arrangement with the private hospitals ran from April – June 2020, where, by way of Government Decision, the HSE acquired access to the totality of private hospital capacity. Under this arrangement, all 18 private hospitals signed up to centrally negotiated Heads of Terms and 100% of their capacity (including ICU) was made available to the State. Following the termination of this agreement in June 2020, the Government mandated the HSE to seek to agree with the private hospitals a new arrangement which would provide the HSE with access to private hospital capacity to include a safety net arrangement for any further surge of Covid-19 cases.
In January 2021 all 18 private hospitals signed a Safety Net 2 agreement to provide additional hospital capacity to the HSE to deal with the surge in Covid-19. The agreement is a standard agreement, signed individually between the HSE and the relevant private hospital/private hospital group. Under the agreement the HSE can obtain up to 15% or 30% of the private hospitals’ capacity, depending on certain metrics regarding the level of community transmission of the disease, or numbers hospitalised or in ICUs occurring. The agreement remains in place until between the middle or end of January 2022, depending on the hospital concerned. The arrangement provides that where the HSE invokes the agreement but does not use the full capacity sought it makes a payment for the unused capacity.
The HSE also made use of private hospital capacity, through a Safety Net 3 arrangement it made with the private hospitals, to help it deal with the cyber-attack which occurred in May 2021.
Actual payments made to the private hospitals under the Safety Net arrangements amounted to €288.2m in 2020 and €119.8m in 2021.
The HSE and the private hospitals have agreed an amended and extended Safety Net agreement, Safety Net 4, building on the lessons learnt from the operation of Safety Net agreements 2 and 3. The agreement will be submitted to Government shortly for its approval and if Government agrees to it, the details will be made available then.
