Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for the question. The development of community and primary care services is a key priority for the Government and primary care centres support this goal by providing a setting in which a range of health professionals can deliver better care, closer to people's homes in their local communities.

Data, as requested in the question, on the number of staff working in individual centres are not compiled centrally by the HSE, nor are vacancies identified within a specific building. There is a rationale for that, as I am sure the Deputy will appreciate, namely, that staff work across their local community and are not assigned solely to a particular centre. Nonetheless, I have asked the HSE to endeavour to get the information as best we can for the Deputy. However, the HSE does acknowledge the requirement to develop integrated reporting systems that would support timely reporting of staff both by service area and location.

Nationally, there are more than 10,600 staff working in primary care and it is estimated that around 1,800 of these staff were working in primary care centres as of November 2018. Many other staff will provide visiting clinics or other services at primary care centres, while some centres may also house mental health or social care staff and others will host visiting clinics run by consultants from acute settings. In addition, centres are used for training, education and other staff or community development programmes. As such, I have no doubt that investment in primary care centres and primary care staff is benefiting local communities.

Alongside infrastructure - this is a crucial point - we are also investing in staff. Deputy O'Reilly makes the point to me regularly that we can have all the shiny buildings we want but we need to staff them properly. I am pleased that in budget 2020 we received a multi-annual commitment for €60 million for what I call the Sláintecare workforce. That will provide 1,000 additional staff in community settings by 31 December 2020. That is a commitment the CEO of the HSE has given me. Roughly speaking, we need about 4,000 additional staff in the community if we are to reach the Sláintecare goals and to achieve the Sláintecare targets. The 1,000 staff is the first tranche and I hope we can build on that with 1,000 each year in the following budgets.

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