HSE blames delayed discharges for €25m overspend in January

The Health Service Executive ran almost €25 million over budget in the first month of this year – despite a plan to reduce costs.

It has blamed the overspend on a “sustained exceptional level” of delayed discharges of patients from hospitals, saying this is “beyond the level” anticipated in this year’s plan for the health service.

Acute services, which include the State’s hospital network, overspent by €11.6 million in January. The HSE says this is a cause for concern and efforts are under way to “gain traction with the necessary cost reduction measures” over the rest of the year.

“It has not been possible to implement staff reductions or agency cost reductions in light of the very challenging position in hospitals in January and February. In fact, agency had to grow temporarily to meet the service needs.”

The HSE says hospitals will have to cut budgets by an average of 2 per cent this year. The Coombe Women’s Hospital and Limerick University Hospitals have the highest overspend so far this year, at €1.1 million and €1.2 million respectively.

It says the impact of regulatory driven pressures is also a significant factor within disability and elderly services.

More than 3,500 patients spent more than 24 hours in emergency departments during January, according to the monthly performance report published by the HSE. St Vincent’s, Beaumont, Naas and Connolly hospitals were the worst for such delays. The report says hospital emergency departments were exceptionally busy during the month.

There were 395,720 people on outpatient waiting lists in January, 11 per cent of whom were waiting more than 15 months. Tallaght hospital was unable to see all its colonoscopy patients within the four-week target over the past two months, resulting in a serious incident being declared and a formal action is now in place, according to the report.