HSE SOUTH is losing more than 600 staff as part of plans to cut its spending by €200 million this year. Publishing its service plan for 2012, HSE South said it was seeking to reduce its spending from €1.898 billion in 2011 to €1.689 billion for this year.
The plan was unveiled yesterday at the HSE South Regional Forum by HSE South Regional director of operations Pat Healy, who said that while expenditure will be down by €208 million this year, not all of this reduction will impact on services.
Mr Healy said the actual shortfall in funding impacting on services this year will amount to €115 million, which includes an €80 million cut in funding that will have a direct effect on services this year and a carry-over deficit from 2011 of €35 million.
However, the plan does include provision for once-off additional funding of €14 million for some child services, which have been under pressure, and for targeted recruitment in frontline services that have been hit by retirements.
Mr Healy said staff numbers at HSE South were at 22,324 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) posts at the start of January 2012, down 2,276 from a peak figure in 2007, and that 1,000 of these left in 2011 while a further 400 are expected to leave before the end of February.
In all, it is projected that 626 WTE staff will have left HSE South between November 2011 and February 2012, with some 214 of these in the acute hospital sector, 171 in services for older people and 124 in the mental health services sector.
Mr Healy paid tribute to the various unions and staff associations and said negotiations had helped bring about greater flexibilities in work practices and rosters, which, along with redeployment, had helped mitigate the impact of retirements on frontline services.
Focusing on services, Mr Healy said there will be a reduction of 128 in the number of long-stay community beds, but 101 of these are already vacant and no community hospital would be closed anywhere in the region from Wexford to Kerry.
Within the acute hospital sector, the focus will be on trying to improve efficiency through reducing the length of hospital stay, upping the numbers being treated as day patients and improving day-of-admission surgery rates for people, he said.
The mental health services sector will see a reduction of some 60 acute inpatient beds across the region, though services will benefit from the opening of two community nursing units with 50 beds and 40 beds in Wexford and Clonmel later this year.
Targeted funding of €20 million will allow for the filling of some 50 priority posts, of which some 20 will be for consultants with 14 of these going to Waterford Regional Hospital, he added.