Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Health the services that have been reduced by the Health Service Executive North/East as a result of the cutback of €130 million in expenditure announced at the end of August; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44590/12]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The HSE has a statutory responsibility to live within the budget voted to it by the Oireachtas. Detailed cost containment plans have been in place across the health service since the beginning of the year, but an increasing demand for services has contributed in a significant way to the ongoing deficit. In order to deal with this, the HSE was required to introduce a range of additional cost reduction measures.

The range of additional measures announced at the end of August amounted to €130 million. In compiling these measures, every effort was taken to target areas that do not impact on direct client/patient services, with a view to protecting, in as much as is possible, the most essential front-line services. The €130m of cost reduction measures is in addition to other non-operational measures to be undertaken, that have been submitted to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, including cash acceleration of receipts from health insurers and once-off transfers from capital to current within the HSE and funding available within the Department of Health's own Vote. It is a priority for the HSE to minimise, to the greatest extent possible, the impact on patients and clients of any spending reductions. Therefore,more than half of the proposals focused on areas that do not have a direct patient impact such as furniture, education and training, office expenses, laptops and PCs, travel and subsistence etc.

Prior to the announcement of the €130m additional cost reduction measures at the end of August, the Louth Meath Hospital Group had already identified the need to introduce measures to reduce its deficit, including a reduction in the usage of agency and overtime. The Louth Meath Hospital Group is reconfiguring services across the hospital group in order to reduce agency staff costs, with every effort being made to ensure that service reconfiguration will have minimal impact on patients and clients. Measures have already been introduced to reduce spending in relation to overtime.

It is proposed that there will be a reduction of a maximum of €8 million on home help hours between now and the end of December. There are approximately 11 million home help hours provided annually with a budget of €195 million. It is the HSE’s intention that the impact of reductions will be minimised by ensuring that services are provided in the first instance for direct patient care.

The Home Help Service and budget allocation in HSE Cavan and Monaghan is set out in the HSE Dublin North East Service Plan 2012, and there will be no further change to the service delivery arrangements in Cavan and Monaghan to year end.

In Louth/Meath, the HSE has assured me that personal care hours for the most vulnerable clients will be prioritised and focus for reductions will be on domestic duties for less vulnerable patients. No current recipient of this service, who has an assessed need for the service, will be left without a service. The number of home help hours to be provided in Louth/Meath between now and the end of the year will be reviewed on an ongoing basis as part of prudent financial management.

My Department is working intensively with the HSE on proposals for submission to Government to address structural expenditure issues in the context of the 2013 Estimates. This includes reconfiguration of services, maximising the potential for flexibility under the Croke Park Agreement and curtailing expenditure in the Primary Care Reimbursement Service. These proposals are entirely appropriate and in keeping with the focus in the Programme for Government on reforming the way health services are funded and delivered to achieve greater productivity and more cost effective services.