Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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56. To ask the Minister for Health when the Health Service Executive will issue its report on a ten-year plan for workforce planning; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37293/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Strategic Workforce Planning and Intelligence (SWP&I) Team in the HSE have engaged the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in a programme of research to develop a workforce projection model and undertake strategic workforce planning projections for a number of professions.

Workforce demand projections for acute hospital staff

In 2021, the Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) team commenced working with the ESRI to extend the capability of the Hippocrates model to incorporate workforce projections. The project sought to analyse workforce demand across the public acute hospitals and undertake projections of demand for the following professions for the years from 2019 to 2035; Medical, Nursing and midwifery, Dietitians, Occupational therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech and language therapists, Social workers, Healthcare assistants and health and social care assistants.

The research report “Projections of workforce requirements for public acute hospitals in Ireland, 2019–2035:a regional analysis based on the Hippocrates model” was published in July 2022 and is available via www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/RS147.pdf

Workforce demand projections for Community staff

The HSE team are currently working with the ESRI to examine workforce requirements across care groups in the community. Undertaking this research is more complex as data is not readily available in the community on service users, such as age, sex, diagnosis, complexity of presentation nor can the workforce be easily aligned to community activity. Consequently, a bespoke research approach for each care group is being adopted.

The research is commencing with the following professions in Primary care: Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Therapists, Psychologists and Dietitians, Audiologists, Podiatrists, Community nursing and Health and Social Care Assistants.

Relevant data has been provided to the ESRI by the HSE and the final component of workforce data validation and collection is nearing completion. It is anticipated that the workforce demand projections will be available by the end of quarter 4, 2024.

The team have also completed work with the ESRI to develop draft methodological approaches for adoption to undertake workforce demand projections for agreed professions who work in Mental health, Disability and Older persons services during which data requirements for these care groups has been identified. The extraction, collation and validation of relevant workforce data for mental health and older persons services has commenced to inform the detailed analysis to be undertaken by the ESRI.

It is anticipated that the workforce projections for the agreed professions across all care groups in the community will be concluded by the end of 2025.