HSE West hospitals in 'serious financial problems'

A SENIOR HSE official has stated that acute hospitals in the HSE West area “are in serious financial problems”.

Liam Minihan, assistant national director for finance with the Health Service Executive, made his comment after confirming that net expenditure across the HSE West area – stretching from North Tipperary and Limerick north to Donegal – is €26.3 million over budget for the first quarter of this year.

Mr Minihan confirmed the spend on hospitals was €20.4 million over budget, with the community sector €5.5 million over. As a means of addressing the overspend at the acute hospitals, Mr Minihan said cost-containment plans were in place “and are planning significant seasonal closures”.

Mr Minihan confirmed that the overspend for the Midwest hospitals was 13 per cent, or €4.5 million over budget, with the overspend at Galway and Roscommon Hospital Group at 10 per cent or €4.1 million. He said the spend in the first three months of this year was €480 million – €26.3 million over the permitted budget of €453.65 million.

He said that by the end of March, 361 people had retired from the HSE West, which would save €34 million this year. The first-quarter spend was €17 million down on the same period last year, he added.

“The big problem for us in the community is the Fair Deal occupancy levels in nursing homes. We need the nursing homes to have 95 per cent occupancy to get our maximum commissioning funding and avoid incurring a deficit. We are running at 10 per cent below the 95 per cent and we are not recovering our costs there.”

Mr Minihan said agency costs had been reduced by €3 million, with overtime down €1.5 million and travel expenses down €1.3 million. He said income collection was up by €3 million.

Chairman of the HSE West forum Cllr Pádraig Conneely (FG) said that if the overrun keeps going throughout the year, there would be a terrible hangover of the budget.

Chief executive of the Galway and Roscommon Hospitals Group, Bill Maher, said: “Year on year, spend has reduced and it is being presented as an overspend.”