Written answers

Thursday, 28 September 2017

Department of Health

Service Level Agreements

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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17. To ask the Minister for Health the reason the HSE is providing €424 million to 26 organisations without having a full service level agreement in place. [40974/17]

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Previous information provided to the Deputy from the Health Service Executive (HSE) in response to PQ 36159/17 in July last regarding organisations in receipt of funding in excess of €1m from the HSE showed that a total of €3.574bn funding is provided to 207 Service Provider organisations through Service Agreements.

At that time Service Agreements were not in place for 26 of those organisations, and these Service Agreements related to total funding of €424m. At that time also documentation had been finalised for €197m of the €424m and this had been allocated to the 26 organisations, leaving a balance of €227m to be paid. Since then Service Agreements have been finalised for 3 further organisations and the outstanding amount to be paid to the 23 organisations is €217m .

In this regard, it should be noted that fully signed Service Agreements are now in place for approximately €3.357bn of the €3.574bn total, which represents approximately 94% of this funding.

In some cases the documentation is not finalised because the HSE is bringing a level of scrutiny to the process so as to ensure that the quality and quantity of the services to be provided for service users are to HSE’s satisfaction. There are also ongoing discussions regarding proposed cost increases and agreeing terms with some service providers . These discussions are conducted in the context of the need to maintain the necessary service provision. In other cases, the process for signing Service Agreements may not be completed because discussions are ongoing between the Providers and the HSE in relation to, for example, the amount of funding provided by the HSE in the context of restoration of pay reductions imposed on foot of the economic crisis.

The HSE is working with the Service Providers to ensure that the Service Agreement process is completed. Service Agreements are only one element of the oversight process. In addition to the Service Agreements, ongoing oversight of the services received for funding allocated, is delivered through the day to day management of that funding by the Hospital Groups and the Community Healthcare Organisations and through other mechanisms such as the Annual Compliance Statement process that is in place for all Section 38 and the larger Section 39 Service Providers.

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