The HSE has implemented an immediate recruitment freeze for a range of staff including non-consultant hospital doctors and healthcare assistants after saying its current funding levels are “not adequate for all current costs”.
The announcement has been criticised as compromising patient care by opposition TDs and the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO).
HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster told senior management on Friday that he was extending the existing recruitment pause beyond clerical and management grades.
The expanded freeze includes patient and client care roles including healthcare assistants and home help, non-consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs), and general support positions.
There will also be an immediate cessation of additional agency staffing above levels set on Friday.
Priority posts within these grades in the short term to be filled through internal redeployment.
With some exceptions, all external or net growth recruitment is to be paused until the end of the year.
The exemptions include the national ambulance service, nursing and midwifery, approved consultant posts and GP-training posts, dentists and orthodontists for public-service schools and emergency service, as well as “health and social care professionals”.
In the memo to senior management, Mr Gloster said it was important to stress that other than around 2,000 specified posts under pre-existing commitments estimated 2000 wte), there will be no further growth in workforce in 2024.
“This means also that previous approved posts in principle which cannot at this time be funded (circa 7,000) will be removed from the profile and, if considered in the future, will have to be new approved developments.”
He said the freeze, which is applicable to all HSE statutory services, voluntary hospitals and voluntary agencies, comes into immediate effect, except for where a contractual obligation already exists.
The IMO said it was “shocked and appalled” at the HSE plans, saying it will inevitably impact negatively on patient care.
Dr Rachel McNamara, chairwoman of the IMO NCHD Committee, said: “This recruitment freeze flies in the face of safe staffing levels.
It will add to the chaos in a system which already does not have enough doctors to deliver safe patient care, where many teams across the country are not fully staffed and where NCHDs are still working illegal and unsafe hours.
“It is astounding that this decision could be made at this point in time.
“Even in the depths of austerity there was no recruitment freeze on medical professionals as it was recognised that delivery of services had to be prioritised.
“It is all the more ironic that swingeing cuts to staff and budgets, imposed during austerity, is what damaged the health service for over a decade, and we are now repeating the same mistakes.”
Dr John Cannon, President of the IMO, said: “NCHDs across all specialties are already working hours that are in excess of legal working hour legislation, and are burnt out working in a system that is completely unfit for purpose.
“It is little wonder that so many of our doctors simply choose to emigrate to systems that recognise their worth.”
The IMO is seeking urgent engagement with HSE on this dangerous decision and “will be considering what actions need to be taken by NCHDs to ensure safe working hours and staffing levels”.
Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane said the announcement came as a result of Government failure to “properly fund the health service”.
He said that this risks catastrophic consequences for patient safety over the coming weeks as the health service battles another difficult winter.
“This is reckless in the extreme.
“We told the Minister (for Health Stephen Donnelly) that this will have a direct impact on the quality and safety of patient care with serious consequences, and we are now seeing the start of that with this recruitment freeze.
“The full implications of the dramatic underfunding are becoming clear.
“This will have a catastrophic impact on our health service as it battles another difficult winter, on patient safety and patients on trolleys, on mental health, on disability, and the almost million people on waiting lists.”
He called for Government to “revisit” the health allocation for this year to revert the recruitment freeze.
Labour health spokesman Duncan Smith described the freeze as “outrageous”.
“News of the recruitment freeze will be a huge blow to all who work in the HSE.
“This latest measure will have a massive long term impact on Ireland’s capacity to deliver care today and into the future.”
