Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

557. To ask the Minister for Health for an update on Ireland's Health Workforce Action Plan, with particular reference on decreasing staff burnout and levels of long-term emigration; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [64789/25]

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

In recent years significant investment has been made in the health and social care workforce. There have been substantial efforts to build capacity, improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.

The Department is focused on the need for good and safe working environments, and the need for health-care workers to be provided with the necessary tools and opportunities for career and competence development. This includes initiatives to improve workplace safety, reduce stress and prevent burnout among health-care staff.

Targeting work transformation along with increasing the domestic supply of health and social care professionals will ensure the future workforce planning efforts are cognisant of budgetary and capacity constraints within the health and social care sectors. There is also a need to explore strategies to promote integrated care, maximise capacity and build flexibility and agility in the workforce to deliver on modernised care pathways.

The development of a long term workforce plan is an important step in our future planning to ensure that we have the appropriate health and social care workforce to deliver on Sláintecare, to ensure that the people of Ireland have access to the right care, at the right place in the right time, delivered by the right people with the right skills at the right cost.

Our long-term workforce planning projections tell us that there is an expected shortfall across most of the health and social care staff categories modelled. This is largely due to an insufficient supply of domestic health and social care graduates to replace the existing workforce and meet the increase in demand for health and social care services. Population demographics are the major driver for this increased demand, and it is anticipated that the average annual growth in demand of professions modelled will range from 1.4% to 2%.

Our workforce planning strategies are informed by five interconnected pillars adopted from the WHO’s Framework for Action on the Health and Care Workforce 2023-2030.

- Plan: Using evidence and long-term workforce projections to meet our future workforce needs.

- Build: Building our future workforce supply through expansion of student places and matching the investment in workforce with the needs of the population.

- Optimise Performance: Reforming, maximising capacity and optimising health system performance to support the development of innovative models of care as envisaged under Sláintecare. Having the right mix of healthcare professionals with the right skills, supported by the right technology is essential.

- Recruit and Retain: Considering tailored interventions to improve recruitment and retention. This includes developing career pathways and opportunities to maximise retention. The same strategies may have different effects on different age groups, life stages, professions, locations and genders, and retention efforts need to be tailored accordingly.

- Invest: Targeted and smart investment in health and social workforce is a valuable investment.