HSE overspent by €95m in first four months

THE FINANCIAL position of the Health Service Executive (HSE) has continued to deteriorate and it is now €95 million over budget for the first four months of the year, according to new official figures.

The HSE has attributed the over-run to increases in spending on demand-led schemes and to higher-than-anticipated numbers of patients being treated in hospitals.

A spokesman for the HSE said that the number of patients being treated in hospitals both on an inpatient and outpatient basis was continuing to run ahead of target.

The HSE budget has also been hit by increases in the number of people qualifying for medical cards, largely as a result of rises in unemployment.

Details of the €95 million deficit was set out by the HSE in exchequer returns to the end of April submitted to the Department of Health and the Department of Finance last week.

A full financial report will be given by HSE management to its board when it meets later this month.

The €95 million deficit represents an increase of around €12 million on the €82.6 million figure recorded in the previous returns for the end of March.

The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, told the Dáil last week that the Oireachtas had voted a budget for the HSE for 2008 of €14.2 billion which, she said, equated to approximately €3,380 for every person in the country or €9,732 for every income taxpayer.

She said that this represented an increase of 8 per cent on the 2007 outturn of the HSE and maintained that by any national or international standard, it was a high level of increase for a national health service.

Ms Harney said that she had recently met with the chairman and CEO of the HSE about its emerging budget pressures.

"The HSE is considering the steps it should take in this regard. When I receive the HSE's proposals in this regard, I will report to Government as part of the normal expenditure management process," she said.

The Irish Times revealed last month that the HSE had drawn up a series of highly controversial policy options for the Department of Health in an effort to claw back on the financial overrun which it has estimated could, if unchecked, reach €300 million by the end of 2008. The proposals include hospital bed closures, the curtailment of AE services and new restrictions on the issuing of medical cards and drug-cost reimbursements.

One option put forward is ceasing to issue new medical cards or reimburse patients for the cost of medicines under various community drugs schemes once the official budget is exhausted. Another is diverting €185 million earmarked this year for the development of services for the disabled, older people and those in palliative care.

Alternatively, the executive has suggested there could be significant reductions in expenditure across the entire community health sector in a bid to deal with the deficits recorded on the demand-led schemes.

On the hospital side, the executive has proposed that beds and theatres could close over summer months, although in some locations this could be for longer periods. Already cutbacks have been announced at a number of hospitals.