Health boards to face questions over surpluses

Department of Health officials are to question at least three health boards on how they came to run surpluses last year at a time of complaints over cut-backs in services.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he had asked the Department officials to raise the issue in the context of planned discussions over the health boards' service plans for 2004.

The move follows the disclosure that some health boards were either in surplus or had "contingency" funds held over due to under-spending last year.

A spokeswoman for the Western Health Board confirmed it had a budget surplus of €15 million, as reported in yesterday's Sunday Tribune. However, she said, "the surplus referred to was for 2002 and 2003, rather than for a single year".

A spokesman for the Mid-Western Health Board said he was unable to establish yesterday whether it, too, was in the black to the tune of €15 million, as reported, although he understood there was a surplus. The South Eastern Health Board said it had a "contingency fund" of €6 million last year which would be carried through to 2004.

Declining to call the fund a "surplus", however, a spokeswoman said: "We did not close any wards or services this year. This contingency fund is a prudent measure to enable us to deal with exceptional circumstances."

The Minister is concerned that the surpluses could be linked to hospital bed closures and cutbacks in certain services.

The health boards are expected to argue that some of the money went unspent because of difficulties in filling vacancies for specialist posts.

Details of the surpluses came to light at recent meetings of Department and health board officials over service plans for 2004. Further such meetings are scheduled for the coming weeks.

Labour's spokeswoman on health, Ms Liz McManus, has called for an independent inquiry into the health boards' spending records "because the Minister in my view is part of the problem. He is putting pressure on the health boards to keep within their budgets.

"Rather than having the Department investigating the problem, I would prefer to see an independent assessment."

She said other factors responsible for the surpluses "may be poor management and poor accounting. Whatever is the cause, it is unacceptable that people are waiting on trolleys in A&E departments, and that vacancies are not being filled when health boards are running surpluses".

She added the issue raised doubts about the merits of removing political representatives from the healthcare system, which would occur with the abolition of the State's 10 health boards at the end of this year.

"Four regional offices with no local accountability will lead to worse problems. If you have a closed shop, who is going to blow the whistle or draw attention to things like this?"

The health boards are being abolished as part of a series of management reforms, including the establishment of a Health Services Executive.