Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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87. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons involved in testing and tracing as part of the Covid-19 response who transferred to that work from elsewhere in the health service; the work from which they were transferred; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41113/20]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I am inquiring about the number of persons involved in testing and tracing as part of the Covid-19 response who were transferred to this work from other sections of the HSE. People who previously provided therapies and so on have been transferred to testing and tracing. I ask the Minister to explain why it was not possible to leave those workers in their positions and hire other people to do this necessary testing and tracing work.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have pursued a robust testing and contact tracing strategy. The HSE has worked intensively to put in place a comprehensive, reliable and responsive testing and tracing operation in a very short timeframe.  The redeployment of existing staff from other areas of the HSE, including front-line services as the Deputy pointed out, was an essential part of this response.

Since the height of the pandemic there has been a significant return of staff to non-Covid front-line roles. This has been facilitated by an ongoing recruitment process through which the HSE has recruited 675 new contact tracers and 565 swabbers to date. Recruitment in these areas will continue until the targets of dedicated staff of 800 in contact tracing and 1,000 in swabbing are met. This will allow the remaining redeployed staff to return to their original roles.

I have been informed that there are 411 staff currently redeployed to swabbing operations, made up of both healthcare workers and non-patient-facing administrative and management staff. Of the staff currently redeployed to contact tracing, none is from patient-focused roles. Areas such as complex contact tracing will continue to require some level of redeployed community staff. Where these staff remain in Covid-19 services, it is intended that their substantive posts will be back-filled. While we remain cognisant of the potential for future demands associated with surges in Covid-19 transmission, the aim is to return redeployed staff to their substantive posts as soon as possible and to ensure that posts are back-filled when this is not possible. I have asked the HSE to expedite this process.  At the end of September, I also announced plans to double the workforce in our public health departments by hiring more public health doctors, public health nurses, scientists and support staff. That hiring process has commenced.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Can the Minister say how many redeployed people, and particularly non-administrative staff, are engaged in testing, not in complex tracing? How many are involved in the routine tracing that was being done, for example, by Army personnel and so forth and, therefore, can be done by competent people who are not necessarily required to have a medical background? I understand the people who carry out the test do not need that background either. It appears the HSE has a total inability to recruit speedily. It is difficult to understand how it took so long to replace necessary HSE staff with people recruited for this purpose. Can the Minister explain how long it takes the HSE to make an appointment from the day it receives an application for a job? What are the processes that take such a long time for such a clearly defined purpose?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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To answer the Deputy's direct question on the number of people in contact tracing, there are now no therapists or front-line community therapists working in contact tracing. They have all been redeployed. There is a current workforce of 736 in swabbing. Of those, 411 are redeployed staff. That combines both the therapists we are discussing and those with non-patient-facing roles. From memory, and I am open to correction, I received a report ten to 14 days ago that the number of therapy grades in swabbing was at 279, but I will revert to the Deputy with the most up-to-date figure on that.

I have engaged repeatedly with the HSE. We should remember that the HSE, to its credit, has created from a standing start one of the most comprehensive testing and tracing regimes anywhere in the western world. That required pulling in therapists. I agree with the Deputy, and the HSE is cognisant of getting the therapists back to their front-line roles as quickly as possible.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister said that over 200 therapists are involved in swabbing. That means 500 of the staff are not therapists. It also means that if there had been quicker recruitment, and there is a massive number of well-qualified and competent people who are unemployed because of Covid-19, the therapists could have been allowed back into their jobs. Can the Minister give an estimate of the increase in the waiting lists for many types of therapy that has occurred due to the fact that there has been a long, non-crisis redeployment? I can understand that during the first lockdown, the HSE had to do something fast. However, I do not understand why, at the end of the year, we still have over 200 therapists involved in swabbing. I would be interested to get some idea as to why it was not possible to employ non-therapy people. Can the Minister give an indication of the effect this has had on various waiting lists in the community healthcare organisations, CHOs, around the country?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It would be easy for us to say that Covid should be a fully stand-alone service line within the HSE and that we should be able to run one of the most comprehensive testing and tracing systems in the world independent of the existing HSE workforce, but that would not be a realistic request to the HSE. The HSE has pointed out repeatedly that while it is redeploying and is back-filling posts as fast as it can, it is a difficult recruiting environment generally. It has also said that the swabbing centres and swabbing service are a serious clinical activity. It has people there who are managing teams. These are experienced clinicians and it is simply not possible to remove all that clinical and therapy experience and all the experience of people who have been involved from the start and have a stand-alone service. There has to be continuity and senior clinical supervision, and the HSE is maintaining that. However, it has committed to redeploying as fast as possible but also as fast as is appropriate to maintain the safety and quality standards in swabbing.

I fully agree with the Deputy that there is a cost to these therapists not being in their front-line roles. We have testimony from people across Ireland, particularly children, who have not been able to get the access they normally would get because of this. Unfortunately, one of the things we must deal with in the HSE and the healthcare system during the Covid pandemic is the same system, essentially, having to fulfil both roles. We must fight Covid-19, and Ireland is doing very well by international standards in that fight, and we must run the full healthcare system at the same time and try to alleviate issues such as the trolley crisis, which we experienced in previous years.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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