Mr. Anne Coyle:

Good morning. I thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss Beaumont Hospital’s annual financial statements for 2023.

The last two years have seen significant change for Beaumont Hospital. A new board has been appointed with a strong focus on ensuring that appropriate governance processes are in place to support strategic and operational delivery. I was appointed as CEO just over a year ago and I have led the recruitment of almost the entire leadership team, filling positions that were either vacant or filled by staff in an interim capacity.

Beaumont is a complex model 4 hospital representing the largest catchment area in the entire country and it is growing. Our most recent data shows that our hospital is getting busier. Despite this growth, we have achieved measurable improvements in our patient flow and quality of patient care, which our key performance indicators illustrate. Patients and staff are front and centre in everything that we do and are at the core of our new 2025-30 hospital strategy, Building Excellence in Care, Together, which launched earlier this year.

The hospital has a very ambitious capital development plan, which is supported by the HSE. The eagerly anticipated cystic fibrosis building will open in quarter 4 of 2025 and represents a significant first step in our journey to improve our services for patients and staff. It is acknowledged that there is an ongoing need for infrastructural investment in Beaumont Hospital for us to continue to deliver access to safe, excellent care and improve service efficiency and productivity. We are working with colleagues in the HSE to advance refurbishment of our existing capital infrastructure and accelerate new capital developments.

In terms of other developments, I am pleased to announce the successful implementation of our Beaumont Hospital information system, BHIS, replacement project. Project Coral, our new clinical information system, went live in September 2025. The project represents one of the most transformational clinical system upgrades in the hospital’s history and was designed to modernise operations, enhance patient care and strengthen future readiness. It is a milestone achievement for our staff and our organisation. We are incredibly proud of what has been accomplished and are thankful to the HSE for supporting this critical infrastructural project.

While such achievements demonstrate progress in our management at the hospital, we are very much still in a transitionary phase of change and improvement. We acknowledge that there is still work to do to enhance our systems of governance as highlighted in our statement of internal controls for our annual financial statements 2023, AFS23, which we will detail today for the committee. Accordingly, I will draw the attention of the committee to AFS23 as I outline its key points. The board acknowledged in its statement of internal control that there was a risk that hospital performance on service delivery and budget control was challenged in 2023 against a backdrop of service pressures previously noted. Since 2023, the board and executive team have been working together to revise our governance processes. This has included external governance support and the establishment of reconstituted subcommittees, with new terms of reference and operational polices being implemented.

I will now address a few specific items, the first of which is non-compliant expenditure. In relation to non-compliant expenditure, the hospital provided a list of non-compliant expenditure to the secretariat of the Committee of Public Accounts in August. We are continually balancing the need for competitive tendering with the need to respond to immediate service continuity risks, which are under continuous oversight by the hospital. The reports on the level of expenditure where the related procurement complied with procurement rules showed that compliance levels increased from 91.8% by the end of 2023 to 93.3% by the end of 2024. We are very conscious of the need to make further improvements towards the achievement of full compliance and are focused on taking all necessary action to realise this.

In March 2025, the hospital made a self-disclosure to the NTPF regarding the possibility of non-compliance with the NTPF MoU within rheumatology outpatient clinics. The NTPF subsequently paused the funding of all NTPF initiatives provided by the hospital pending review. HSE internal audit undertook a fact-finding review that is now complete. Included in the findings was that Beaumont Hospital billed the NTPF for €25,000 in error for rheumatology waiting list services that had already been funded by the Health Service Executive. This amount has been reimbursed to the NTPF At all times, the hospital’s overriding focus was actively managing waiting lists for rheumatology during the review period to ensure waiting times were reduced and maintained. The report confirms that, throughout the period under review, NTPF funding enabled the delivery of around 1,700 rheumatology treatments, which contributed to these waiting list initiative results. Beaumont Hospital accepts the findings of the HSE internal audit report and is committed to implementing the recommendations made in relation to the hospital. Beaumont Hospital confirms no rheumatology consultant received any additional income or reimbursement related to treatment clinics billed by the NTPF. Beaumont Hospital and the NTPF continue to work collaboratively to improve waiting times for our patients.

The hospital, as a local, regional and national service provider, remains committed to strengthening clinical governance, patient safety and risk oversight, and ensuring that lessons from legal claims, Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA inspections, and national patient surveys are embedded into governance processes.

I am available for any questions.