Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is a degree of chicken and egg in this case. The Deputy referred to the poor quality work environment but to improve that we need more people to work in the public health service. I appeal to people, in particular our young graduates from nursing and medical school, to work with us and to give the Irish health service a chance as we enter a period of reinvestment.

The staffing environment of the HSE is dynamic and subject to significant service demands. When a position is vacated, work may be covered through a variety of measures, such as redeployment, restructuring or reallocation. It may also be necessary for duties to be covered by agency staff or through overtime arrangements. The HSE does not operate a vacancy rate, as the question terms it, but rather records a staff turnover rate. The HSE estimates that the adjusted turnover rate for 2016 was 5.7%. This means that, each year and at any one time, people will be moving in and out of about one in 20 posts across the health service. This can be for a range of reasons. People may simply move to a new location while remaining within the HSE. Other reasons include retirement, resignation or taking up other types of leave such as maternity leave.

As the Deputy is well aware, there are difficulties in filling consultant posts in certain specialties and locations. Approximately 200 such posts may be vacant at any one time. However, most of these are filled on a locum or agency basis to ensure continued service delivery. The figures at the end of July 2017 show that there were more consultants employed at that point than at the same time last year. They also show that the number of consultants in the service has increased by more than 700 in the past decade. The number of non-consultant hospital doctors has also increased year on year. I note also that there were over 36,000 nursing and midwifery staff members in employment at end July 2017. This is an increase of more than 700 in the past 12 months against a backdrop, as the Deputy rightly points out, of intense global competition. Under the agreement reached with the nursing unions earlier this year, the HSE has developed a funded workforce plan for an additional 1,224 nursing and midwifery posts in 2017.

One element of this workforce plan is that of agency conversion. I am supportive of the efforts being made in converting agency staff into permanent posts.

The Public Service Pay Commission did not find that the rate of staff turnover in the health sector gave cause for concern generally. However, it did identify problems in recruitment and retention in specific and specialist groups, including nursing, which are internationally in demand. The commission will now carry out a more comprehensive examination of underlying difficulties and is committed to reporting on several health sector grades in 2018.

I welcome the fact the health sector unions voted in favour of the public sector deal in the knowledge that this body of work will take place at Public Service Pay Commission.

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