Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 February 2022
165. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Minister for Health the progress of plans to address the recruitment challenge in the health service which has left a significant number of consultant and hospital posts vacant leading to poorer outcomes for patients, including in mental healthcare. [7833/22]
View answerAs a result of the commitment to sufficiently staff the health service into the long-term, 2020 and 2021 have seen record numbers recruited into the workforce. 2020 saw the largest increase in the health sector workforce since the foundation of the HSE, with 2021 having the second largest. Since the beginning of January 2020, an additional 12,506 WTE have been added to the workforce, which is an increase of 10% above 2019 levels. 7,592 of these WTE have been additional to the Acute sector.
Budget 2022 has provided funding for a further large-scale expansion of the health service workforce. A risk has been identified of a reduction of labour supply, given the large amount of recruitment that has already been achieved. To mitigate the risks associated with recruitment in 2022 and to achieve recruitment targets to the fullest extent possible, a number of steps are being taken by the HSE including expanding recruitment capacity, engaging third party agencies to carry out recruitment and expansion of international recruitment frameworks.
With regard to consultant recruitment specifically, in 2021 the Health Service Executive undertook a full review of their processes for the recruitment of consultants to the health service. A Recruitment & Resourcing Governance Steering Group was established and in line with the work of this group, a small Working Group formed to specifically examine processes around the recruitment of Medical Consultants.
An ‘end to end’ process mapping of the approval and recruitment process was completed by the Working Group which highlighted several areas for improvement and work is ongoing in this regard, however several measures have already been taken to improve this recruitment process.
These include revising the process for the Consultant Applications Advisory Committee (CAAC) and National Recruitment Service (NRS) application form and Job Specification, reviewing consultant competencies and implementing revised and safe screening processes to reduce duplication and times to hire.
The benefits of the targeted approaches taken to consultant recruitment are emerging in our performance since the onset of the pandemic with an excess of +300 WTE consultants in post above December 2019 levels. The HSE are working with the PAS to ensure that the appropriate infrastructure and resources are in place within the PAS to process the continued increase in 2022.
Looking forward, there are several initiatives planned for 2022 to build on the progress made and improve further on the recruitment and retention of consultants to the health workforce in Ireland.
These will include reducing the time costs associated with the application process and onboarding of consultants. Ensuring there is greater transparency and access to concurrent data on consultant recruitment status activity and the development of comprehensive marketing including a Medical Consultant microsite Increased access to supports when engaging in the application process. The centralisation of administration requirements which will deliver a reduction in the duplication of processes across multiple sites.
The deputy may wish to note that there has been a 17% increase of Higher Specialist Trainees since 2017 which, going forward, will translate into more qualified candidates for consultant roles as they complete training.
