Health service management is to engage with staff on work-practice reforms aimed at extending the delivery of services to between 8am and 8pm on weekdays and at weekends.
Reform plans are being drawn up by management across the public service as part of the overall pay agreement reached earlier this year with unions representing about 400,000 staff on the State payroll.
In the Civil Service, reform plans signal a range of moves towards remote or blended working as well as a shaking-up of work practices and overhauling the wider property portfolios held by different organisations.
The Department of Social Protection is to examine offering other public services through its network of Intreo Offices, for example, while the Revenue Commissioners are looking at options to deliver services across a seven-day week.
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A range of workplace changes are mapped out in the reform proposals – including the use of hot-desking and “multi-use” offices which will allow for “best use of the State’s property portfolio”.
The days of an office used by a sole worker may be numbered, with the document suggesting a “reduction in the use of single-occupancy office”.
The office of the Ombudsman and the Revenue Commissioners are among the bodies considering such moves, with the new reform document outlining how Revenue is considering revision to office plans with “no automatic right to single-occupancy office for any grade”.
As part of the health reform plan, management wants staff to co-operate with redeployment needed as part of the move to the new national children’s hospital as well as the planned new surgical hubs which are to be established.
The plan also says management wants staff engagement and co-operation with implementation of new ways of working including new rosters from the third quarter of this year.
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It says it wants to see the “implementation of extended working hours and seven-day rostering of healthcare staff to deliver a 7/7 (seven day) healthcare service that meets patient and staffing needs”.
It says it also wants to “enable the delivery of services outside of traditional 9am-5pm pattern to an extended span of the working day (typically 8am-8pm) and at weekends”.
Management also wants continued co-operation by hospital consultants with the new public-patient-only contract. It wants “co-operation with rostering over evenings, on Saturdays and out-of-hours cover” as well as an increase in the number of consultant-led outpatient clinics being delivered.
Revenue is also is looking at developing “hubs” designed to facilitate those who cannot avail of blended working options “due to accommodation issues”. Revenue also envisages reforms such as open-plan accommodation at all grades, ditching automatic rights to a designated desk and the use of desk-booking apps, as well as “co-location across organisations when required” including “office reconfiguration/rationalisation”.
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The Department of Social Protection is looking at opportunities to consolidate its office accommodation arising from flexible working arrangements and blended work, eyeing “saving on costs” from properties leased by the Office of Public Works and “freeing up buildings for alternative uses”. Meanwhile, the Department of Transport is looking at collaborative workplaces and the Department of Agriculture is also looking at increased use of hot desking and reviewing and consolidating existing office locations.
Under the €3.6 billion pay deal, public service personnel will receive rises of 10.25 per cent over a 2½-year period, up to the middle of 2026.
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