Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)
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441. To ask the Minister for Health to respond to matters raised in correspondence (details supplied); if she will engage with the relevant authorities regarding facilitation of these clinical placements; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52751/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Recruitment and retention of healthcare workers including physiotherapists is a key priority for the Government. Every effort will be made to assist Irish students studying Physiotherapy in the Netherlands to secure clinical placements, enabling them to register with CORU and take up positions within the Irish health service.

Officials in my department are engaging with the HSE regarding the availability of clinical placements for all HSCP students including those students who have qualified outside Ireland and who require periods of adaptation to have their qualifications recognised in Ireland. The HSE, through the National Health & Social Care Professional (HSCP) Office is working on several work-streams to support increasing capacity to deliver sustainable and scalable clinical placement opportunities for all HSCPs including physiotherapists. This work includes education resources, events, multi-pronged communications and the establishment of core teams within each region to formalise and develop regional level HSCP clinical infrastructure.

The HSE National HSCP Office is leading work to increase practice placement capacity and the availability of placements for students. Students will benefit from increased placements associated with the following developments:

1. Establishment of prioritised core teams within each region to formalise and develop regional level HSCP clinical placement infrastructure.
2. New grade codes have been introduced which will enable HSCP to be employed on a temporary basis whilst completing periods of adaptation required to enable recognition of overseas qualifications.
3. Targeted communications campaign highlighting the importance of clinical placements cascaded to all HSCP at all levels with the aim of increasing the number of clinical placements available.
4. Ongoing support for the implementation of the HSCP Quality Framework for Sustainable Practice Education.
5. Development of a business case for a HSCP practice placement/compensation measures database. This will enable tracking of capacity and availability of placement opportunities.
6. Developing a sustainable model for training HSCPs to provide practice placements/compensation measures.