Derek Keating (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Question 635: To ask the Minister for Health if he is satisfied that the primary care services which depend on public health nurses will be adequate after the deadline for retirement in February; the number of public health nurses who will retire or accept early redundancy in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3615/12]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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The health and social care needs of individuals/families/communities are met by Primary Care Teams (PCTs) which include general practice (GP and practice nurses), physiotherapy, public health nursing, community nursing, occupational therapy, etc. and through the broader range of Health and Social Care Network services, e.g. psychology, dietetics, podiatry/chiropody, audiology, community ophthalmology, etc., who work with a number of PCTs.

Contingency planning is ongoing to ensure quality safe services can be delivered following the retirement of staff from services at the end of February 2012. The HSE is currently carrying out a review of Public Health Nursing services, which is expected to be completed early in 2012. This review will inform national HSE policy in order to facilitate the integration of services and the delivery of efficient and safe care to patients in the community.

In line with the commitment in the Programme for Government to significantly strengthen primary care services, additional funding of €20m has been provided in the HSE's National Service Plan 2012 to fill as many vacancies as possible and to expand existing arrangements where sessional services are provided by allied health professionals. This will be increased to €25m if it can be established that there is scope for further savings of €5m in demand-led schemes.

During 2011, the HSE established a system to identify and record the numbers of staff applying to retire before the end of February 2012. This information is updated on a regular basis as staff apply to retire. Final figures for the actual number of retirements in this period will not be available until after the end of January 2012, reflecting the fact that a minimum of one month's notice of intention to retire must be given.

A breakdown by grade and region of Public Health Nurses (PHNs) who have indicated that they will retire in the months of January and February 2012 has been provided by the HSE and is presented in the table below. It should be noted that this data is subject to change in the event of additional applications being received or existing applications being withdrawn. The breakdown provided is also subject to change as the individual applications are validated and processed.