jen

Ok, back to whining. @rte published this news story last Sunday afternoon: rte.ie/news/health/2024/0714… On Monday morning, I thought: fantastic, this will correct some immediately solvable systemic therapy delivery issues in Portiuncula and Galway in particular. Solutions that have been lined up to take effect as soon as the @HSE_live recruitment moratorium ended. As it turns out the recruitment moratorium has not ended, rather, it has taken on a new form. We still cannot recruit the 4 vacant staff nurse posts in our dayward that are desperately needed, for example. Quoting from the article, @BernardGloster is of this view: “recruitment limits and controls for regions [the new Regional Health Authorities] have been set and cannot be breached”. While it may well be the case that the upper levels of management are aware of these regional recruitment limits, and how they affect HSE services regionally, I do not know what these recruitment limits are. I have asked. It is disingenuous to declare that the HSE recruitment moratorium has ended, when the moratorium as far as I can see has de facto not changed. A few points: 1. The management of the hospitals that I work in are highly competent and capable, and work hard every day to improve the standard of care we offer to patients. They have my full support. 2. There are 4 vacant staff nurse posts allocated to our dayward that are desperately needed (and have been for the past 6 months; existing staff are digging deep to cover the shortfalls, it has been going on too long now) to deliver the level of access and service that we would all like to see. This is my current priority, but there are a wide range of HSCP positions also vacant. 3. Those vacant staff nurse posts are still currently not recruitable as of today (despite what @BernardGloster might have implied). 4. When the number of staff available to run a clinical service drops below a critical service-delivery threshold - to the extent that demoralisation sets in - the reputational damage to that service is harmful for a generation. It is difficult to recover from that. 5. If regional recruitment limits have been set, I would like to know what those regional limits are, and how those numbers are distributed. We need more nurses, and HSCPs to deliver a functional service. These are in my mind already existing posts. If previously active permanent posts are being eliminated by the HSE, we need details. 6. Transparency from the @HSE_live around the regional recruitment limits that are set is essential. The allocation of WTE in publicly funded hospitals (voluntary and non-voluntary) nationally must be proportionate to clinical activity. 7. Without a functional electronic healthcare record, I have no idea how resources can be fairly distributed nationally based on activity. In summary, the HSE recruitment moratorium has effectively not ended. I’ll stop short there for now.