Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 June 2023
142. Deputy Pauline Tully asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he has plans to increase the number of places on courses related to health and social care on the accelerated graduate programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26740/23]
View answerThe Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science does not place a quota on the number of places on these type of courses as offered by higher education institutions, and as such the number of places provided each year is determined by the institutions themselves in line with their capacity.
Higher Education Institutions are autonomous bodies within the meaning of the Universities Act 1997, the Institutes of Technology Acts 1992 to 2006, and the Technological Universities Act 2018 . As such they are autonomous in relation to their administrative and academic affairs, and the courses offered by any institution, and the level at which they are offered, are a matter for the individual institutions to determine
There are two-year professional qualification programmes available in the University of Limerick at Masters level in the disciplines of Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language therapy. The data for the most recently available five years of graduates from these programmes is in the table below. This data was sourced from the Student Records System (SRS) of the HEA .
|
HEI |
Programme |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
|
University of Limerick |
Occupational Therapy (Professional Qualification) |
25 |
35 |
30 |
30 |
30 |
|
University of Limerick |
Physiotherapy (Professional Qualification) |
10 |
15 |
15 |
15 |
20 |
|
University of Limerick |
Speech and Language Therapy (Professional Qualification) |
30 |
30 |
20 |
20 |
30 |
The Programme for Government commits the Department of Health to working with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.
Health and social care programmes are by their nature complex in delivery. Officials from my Department are continuing to engage with Higher Education Institutions to maximise additionality in Health and Social Care Professional undergraduate programmes from September 2023. My officials are also engaging with the Department of Health as these additional places require additional resources, and fundamentally require placements to be put in place by the HSE and the Department of Health.
My Department has established a working group, including representation from the Department of Health, Education, Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth HSE, the Higher Education Sector and CORU, as well as the higher education sector to specifically examine how placements can be secured to facilitate greater numbers of training places.
This group has made good progress and the HSCP Office within the HSE is developing a Framework for Practice Placement Education. I understand that the Department of Health have also recently appointed a HSCP Officer to lead on enabling expansion in health and social care profession
It is important to say that the provision of such programmes in the further and higher education system must have regard to overall workforce plans which are the responsibility of the relevant agencies and Departments to develop for their sectors. Such plans need to take account of planned service expansion, retirement and improvements in the retention of existing staff, and changes in the mix of staff which employers are best placed to understand and influence.
The HEA have also advised higher education institutions of their intention to conduct an exercise to identify where substantial additional capacity could be built in priority HSCP disciplines. This would likely require the development of physical infrastructure, the recruitment of staff, and the approval of programmes by regulators. These factors will impact on the ultimate timeline for substantial numbers of additional places being made available.
