David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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219. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 249 of 18 February 2021, if his Department has conducted a workforce census of the entire public and private health and social care system (details supplied); the breakdown or estimates of workers across categories of service providers by profession and speciality; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13691/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The HSE conducts a monthly census of public health services employment for covering the HSE and Section 38 Voluntary Hospitals & Agencies. The Health Services Personnel Census (HSPC) is the official employment count for the public health sector and is routinely published at .

The Deputy will be interested to note that, at 31st January 2021, there were 126,689 WTE (equating to 145,842 personnel) directly employed in the provision of Health and Social Care Services by the HSE and the various Section 38 organisations. These, latest available figures represent a 6,872 (+5.7%) WTE increase over the course of December 2019 outturn.

The Department has not completed a workforce census of private social care providers. However, The Nursing Homes Expert Panel report, published in August 2020, made 86 recommendations on a range of issues, including in relation to ensuring that safe staffing is available in nursing homes, that infection prevention and control measures are in place, and that PPE is readily available and utilised appropriately. The Department continues to engage, including through the Implementation Oversight Team and the Reference Group with HIQA as the regulator of the nursing homes sector, the HSE as a nursing home provider, and with the representative body for private and voluntary nursing homes, on the implementation of the recommendations of the Nursing Homes Expert Panel report.

One recommendation of the report is that HIQA should carry out and publish a detailed audit of existing staffing levels (nursing and care assistant) and qualifications in all nursing homes, public, voluntary and private. HIQA, supported by the Chief Nursing Officer’s office in the Department of Health, has developed and approved an audit tool for same and University College Cork has been engaged to support in the development of this tool, due to its experience in workforce data collection tools. These results shall be published when they become available.