Results 2,601-2,620 of 12,424 for speaker:Louise O'Reilly

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Business of Joint Committee (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Good morning. As we have a quorum, I call the meeting to order. We will first go into private session.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: We are in public session. We are meeting with PA Consulting, authors of the Health Service Capacity Review report for 2018. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Mr. Stephen Smyth, Mr. Tim Daly, Mr. Chris Nightingale and Mr. George MacGinnis of PA Consulting. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Thank you very much Mr. MacGinnis. I will invite committee members to ask questions and we will take them in groups of three. I ask members to bank the questions. I call Senator Burke, Deputy Donnelly and Deputy Durkan in that order.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Will they take a while to answer?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Then it might be wiser to ask one or two, after which the Deputy will have an opportunity to speak again. Is that okay?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I also have a few questions to ask, as do Deputies Bernard J. Durkan and Alan Kelly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: If the delegates take those questions, Deputies Alan Kelly and Stephen S. Donnelly and I will have an opportunity to ask further questions later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Yes. I will then move on because Deputies Bernard J. Durkan and Alan Kelly have questions to ask.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Deputy Durkan had some questions and we will get to those answers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: There are a number of questions - I have some as well - relating specifically to staffing and the future-proofing element of recruitment. The elephant in the room is the retention of staff. Is it possible for the witnesses to briefly run through this? All of the assumptions made in the report are based on-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: We are all asking questions in the same kind of area. Will the witnesses explain if they assumed the recruitment would happen or if they have a strategy for it? Was it factored into the plans as to how many beds were going to be needed etc.? I am conscious that Deputy Durkan's questions may not have been reached but we are all asking the same kind of questions. Deputy Kelly has other...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: To be frank, it does not answer the matter of workforce planning. Much of what has been said is predicated on the need for staff. We would not have a health service without its staff. Much of the difficulty experienced in the health service revolve around the matter of recruitment and retention. It seems that maybe the report sidestepped that somewhat.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: We will take the next round of questions if that is okay. They will come from Deputies Kelly and Donnelly, and I have some questions as well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I apologise.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Will the witnesses respond to Deputy Durkan?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: I apologise again. The witnesses might respond to Deputy Durkan before we give Deputy Kelly his opportunity. He will get an award for being very patient this morning.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: The submission refers to the available resource data from 2016 and the activity data, which I assume is the hospital in-patient enquiry, HIPE, data, from 2016. We ask the HSE many questions and while I would dearly love to say we get many answers, sometimes we do not. We have had trouble getting information on activities, for example, the number of operations performed in theatres, or basic...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: This is the same company which did the review in 2007. At any stage did it make its views known to the Department? It would make sense as the Department presumably commissioned the company. Did the company advise that it would make sense to do a workforce plan alongside a capacity review? The Department would have sought the company's advice and seems to have discounted some of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: Which ratio of nurses to beds does the company use?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Louise O'Reilly: That is like asking how long a piece of string is. A pilot has just been completed, which will mean we have to substantially increase the number of nurses in the workforce. The pilot achieved really good results but the difficulty is that we are on a merry-go-round and we keep coming back to the issues of recruitment and retention.