Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

167. To ask the Minister for Health if she is satisfied that current recruitment and retention strategies are sufficient to address staffing shortages across the health service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52502/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There has been an unprecedented level of investment by this Government in the health service workforce in recent years.

Growth in the number of staff in our health service has never been so high, with the recruitment over the past 5 years being the highest since the foundation of the Health Service Executive (HSE).

There are over 29,000 more staff working in the health service than there were at the beginning of 2020, more than a 24% increase. This includes and additional 9,949 nurses and midwives; 4,961 health and social care professionals; and 3,973 doctors and dentists.

It is true that attracting and retaining healthcare workforce is becoming more challenging. There is a competitive global market for talent across all health and care professions in which the mobility of healthcare workers across the globe has increased. In response to these challenges, the Department of Health and HSE are looking towards opportunities not only to attract and recruit talent, but also to develop, engage and retain the workforce to meet current and emerging patient and service needs.

The resourcing of the HSE workforce is anchored in the HSE Strategic Resourcing Plan which was launched in 2023.

With continued drive to digitisation and process simplification to reduce hiring times and improve candidate experience, the new systems enable targeted recruitment and retention strategies. The expansion of regional and national collaboration will grow candidate pools and address hard-to-fill roles. The HSE continues to maintain and enhance engagement with both domestic and international candidates through tailored supports and outreach. The regionalisation of HSE has enabled 90% of recruitment to be devolved to regional teams, bringing recruitment decisions closer to services.