Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

For the first time in seven years, the overall budget for health services has increased. The HSE will have €635 million more available in 2015 than was provided in the original Estimate for 2014. In addition, a minimum savings target of €130 million has been set in areas such as procurement, drugs and agency costs in 2015 and, in a welcome new development, further savings that can be achieved over and above the minimum savings target will go back into the delivery of health and social care services. In the past three weeks additional funding has been sanctioned for primary care, the fair deal scheme and the opening of community and district hospital beds.

Approximately €4 billion is being made available to acute hospital services in 2015. A further €900 million comes from insurers and charges paid by patients to hospitals. This represents a very significant increase in hospital budgets compared to the original provision last year. When compared with the 2014 expenditure outturn, taking account of overruns which should not have happened in the first place, there is a modest reduction of approximately 2%. These savings are to be achieved in the manner set out in the HSE service plan and include savings in procurement, reductions in drug costs and the reduction of agency and overtime expenditure through more appropriate staffing and workforce planning, including taking on additional staff.

The HSE national service plan includes a robust accountability framework and the HSE is in ongoing engagement with the hospital groups to ensure a comprehensive and robust assessment of emerging financial pressures and appropriate measures to deal with same. The service plan recognises that the allocation of more realistic budgets brings with it a requirement for greater accountability to ensure services are delivered within the budget provided. The commitment of the management and staff of hospitals will be key in ensuring the best possible outcomes are secured from the €4 billion budget within which hospitals must operate in 2015.

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