James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

The HSE's national service plan 2012 commits to significantly reducing the volume of agency staff usage, with a target reduction of up to 50%. The plan also notes that the transposition into Irish law of the temporary agency workers directive will increase the unit cost of agency staffing. The service plan contains a commitment that overtime and agency staffing are not to be used to support service levels beyond those agreed in the plan or to substitute for staff losses.

I have no plans to specify minimum staffing numbers for front-line services. The impact of staff reductions, and particularly those occurring before the end of the present grace period, together with reduced financial resources, represents a significant challenge for the health system. The HSE's national service plan 2012, which I recently approved, sets out the actions to be taken to address this challenge. The executive is seeking to mitigate the impact of the retirements on front line services by: using the provisions of the public service agreement to bring about greater flexibilities in work practices and rosters, redeployment and other changes to achieve more efficient delivery of services; delivering greater productivity through the national clinical programmes to reduce average length of stay, improve day of admission surgery rates and increase the number of patients treated as day cases; and some limited and targeted recruitment in priority areas to help limit the impact of retirements on front line services.

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