Voluntary hospitals failed to provide HSE with details of €803m spending

Voluntary hospitals failed to provide the Health Service Executive (HSE) with details it sought on procurement totalling more than €803 million, the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has been told.

The non-response to a request for the information by the HSE was described as “concerning” by the State’s spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy.

Voluntary hospitals – or Section 38 organisations – are substantially taxpayer funded and are required to follow the State’s procurement rules.

The PAC sought information from the HSE on the compliance of such bodies with these rules.

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The HSE sent a briefing document outlining steps it has taken to encourage compliance.

It sets out how there are also discussions on developing a singular procurement plan for health and that “relevant spend and contract data” was requested from Section 38 organisations.

However, the HSE was only provided with information for 14 per cent of spending that totalled more than €934 million.

There was no information for spending of more than €803 million of this.

Mr McCarthy told a PAC meeting today that the HSE document: “doesn’t give a huge amount of information about the compliance”.

He said the graphic outlining the response rate to the HSE’s request for information on procurement form hospitals is “concerning”.

He added that he would expect the HSE to be “chasing up on that” to ensure it gets the explanations it needs to oversee compliance with procurement rules.

PAC chairman Brian Stanley said the committee will have to address the issue with the HSE when it next appears before TDs as Section 38 organisations get what he believes is more than €4 billion in State funding.

He said the HSE, the Department of Health and the PAC "need to know that proper procurement is being followed and I think the fact that such sparse information is coming back is of huge concern."