Reform HSE 'Frankenstein' - Labour

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore today called for clear lines of authority, responsibility and reporting within what he described as the “bureaucratic Frankenstein” of the HSE.

Mr Gilmore was presenting a six-point health-care plan that Labour said would allow for radical reform of a “monolithic system, distanced from the patient, divorced from Ministerial accountability, driven by budgetary concerns rather than patient need”.

“The HSE was ill-conceived, ill-designed and ill-executed. The political pressure to press ahead in creating a super-bureaucracy led to a whole series of problems being unresolved left at the time that the HSE went live, which are continuing to cause problems today,” he said.

Mr Gilmore said a significant reform of the HSE was required

The result was inefficiency, confusion, increased administrative costs, loss of public trust and of staff morale, Labour said.

“The notion that the Minister and her Department are responsible for policy only, has allowed the Minister to duck responsibility for almost everything,” Mr Gilmore added.

He said that what was required now was a significant reform of the HSE, with decision-making being devolved as far as possible to local level, with local managers having the power to spend budgets, in addition to proper political accountability at local and national level.

He added that the “super-private clinics” were proving to be “a slow and expensive way of copper-fastening greater inequality in the health service”.

In addition to clear lines of authority, responsibility and reporting within the HSE, and localised decision-making, Labour called for the Minister for Health to be answerable to the public through the Dáil, and for the secretary general of the Department the accounting officer for the HSE

The party proposed a voluntary early retirement, redundancy and redeployment scheme; giving each hospital and each community care area autonomy to spend its budget; and requiring each hospital to establish a management board.

Labour also called for accountability through local and national public representatives in network and community care areas rather than regional level, and abolishing regional structures; and for hospitals and community care areas to have a patient liaison programme.

“By reforming the HSE, by investing in not-for-profit hospitals, and through a series of other reforms, the Government can begin to fix the appalling mess that is the HSE and to restore public confidence in our health service,” Mr Gilmore said.