Results 281-300 of 1,123,665 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Niall Collins OR speaker:Jennifer Whitmore OR speaker:David Stanton OR speaker:John Brady OR speaker:Alan Kelly OR speaker:Paul Murphy OR speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice OR speaker:Willie O'Dea OR speaker:Duncan Smith OR speaker:Seán Haughey OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Michael Moynihan OR speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn OR speaker:Brian Stanley OR speaker:Fergus O'Dowd OR speaker:Eamon Ryan OR speaker:Dessie Ellis OR speaker:Matt Shanahan OR speaker:Thomas Pringle OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Michael McGrath OR speaker:Brendan Howlin OR speaker:Catherine Martin OR speaker:Roderic O'Gorman OR speaker:Johnny Mythen OR speaker:Réada Cronin)

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: They probably are.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. The core part of this is patient safety. There is a financial cost involved for the State as well, but, first and foremost, this is about reducing and, where possible, eliminating harm to patients. A few different things have happened. In terms of catastrophic birth injuries, there is now a review group. It was set up, I believe, two years ago by an eminent...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I am sure we can get that information for the Deputy. What we are seeing in the profile is that there was a significant escalation, as we see from the figures provided to the committee, from €205 million in 2015 up to €465 million in 2021. It more than doubled. In 2022, it went up €530 million. It has stabilised over the past four years.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: There would be various reasons. The payments being made this year will, for example, relate to cases from quite some time ago. We will get the Deputy a more detailed note in terms of legal fees versus payments. We want to achieve a few things. First and foremost, we want to maximise patient safety. Second, where there is a mistake or where there is a catastrophic birth injury or...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: They are measured each year. There is an accurate understanding of the number of catastrophic birth injuries and, indeed, other patient safety issues. It is taken very seriously. The patient safety office in my Department is very involved in this. The HSE is also very involved. We can certainly provide some detail in terms of the numbers. For example, the legal fees relating to the...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: The OPW was mentioned in the context of the Brexit infrastructure in Dublin Airport and the two ports.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I will ask Ms Louise McGirr to provide the details.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank Deputy Cullinane for that. I will answer his second question first. Ms McGirr is on the task force and is well placed to give the Deputy an update on his first question. On the changes to work practices, what we are doing is pursuing what was called for in Sláintecare. For me, there are three pieces to this, namely, structural changes to get better productivity, operational...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: The figure of 2,000 is contested. My Department has written to the INMO seeking the figures. It has not provided those to us. We wrote again to the INMO this week seeking those figures. Nobody has cited these 2,000 roles. If and when we get the list of those posts, we will of course take that very seriously.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I am saying that we keep hearing this figure that there are-----

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: It is. Something that is very clear - let us just stick with nursing and midwifery for now but it applies across the board - is that the total funded positions in nursing and midwifery today are well higher than they were this day-----

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I will answer the Deputy's question. We need to see the INMO or Fórsa figure of 2,000. We will verify it. It is the case that there are teams, be they in the community or in hospitals, which are under a lot of pressure. There are teams that might have had one or two vacant posts in January, where they do not currently have agreement to hire into those posts so I-----

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: -----absolutely accept that.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: The point is there are thousands more posts now than there were. What can be done? Hospital managers and regional executive officers can redeploy. Ultimately, there are thousands more posts today than there were this time last year. We are talking about an overrun of €1.7 billion. We have to get away from a world where individual hospitals, and it is mainly the hospitals rather...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: To be clear, for funded vacant posts, the budget has funded an extra 3,500 posts for next year. This year, there are approximately 3,000 funded vacant posts. Between now and the end of next year, there will be approximately 6,500 fully funded vacant posts.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: It is very disappointing. I absolutely acknowledge that there are teams. There are community-based teams in primary care, for example, and teams in our hospitals, where they really are under pressure. There were vacancies in their teams through the embargo and they no longer have sanction to immediately hire into those. However, as envisaged under Sláintecare, we are pushing...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: There is a lot of data. There is the health service performance assessment, which is an online tool that went up earlier this year. It shows a lot of comparative information in terms of how-----

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: If the Deputy searches for "HSPA" or "health service performance assessment tool", he will get it. There is a lot of information there. The short version of it is, looking at western Europe, which really is our comparative group, in some areas, we are around average but getting better, we are below average in some areas, and we are doing really well in some areas. In areas like women's...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I might ask Mr. McGlynn to respond to that question. We certainly can get the Deputy a more detailed note. My officials have asked for a minute to confer on the Deputy's question.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Stephen Donnelly: I agree with the Deputy that there is probably nothing to be served by going back over this matter. It was a fairly well ventilated budget discussion last year. The settlement this year is significant, with €1.5 billion for ELS this year, €1.2 billion for next year and €900 million for one-off to core. Critically, as well as that, there is now a very clear workforce...