2009 HSE Survey: Is this data correct?

Dannyboy83

http://www.movetoireland.com/movepag/medover.htm
Health Boards were the bad old way that the national health service was run, they tell us. Billions of euro and many studies later, salvation was promised by the renaming of these Health Boards and a reshuffle of bureaucratic deckchairs.

Now, try and follow this. A few decades ago, local Health Boards were set up to give more control to locals in their health care spending. So, you had local Health Boards overseen by the Department of Health.

Then the local Health Boards were superseded by the new Health Service Executive (HSE). So, now there’s the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive.

Hospitals now are controlled by the National Hospitals Office (NHO). There are ten hospital networks based on the old regional health board structure. Then, there are 32 local health offices, one for each county. The local health offices (LHO) report to Primary, Community and Continuing Care (PCCC), a directorate of the HSE. Regional HSE offices interact with national HSE headquarters and also the NHO, LHO, PCCC and the local regional hospital network.

Remember, the temporary HSE regions are now defunct. So are the old regional Health Boards. The new HSE regions replace the temporary ones, which were the same as the old health boards.

There you go. Is that clear?

Now that it’s all sorted, it’s a mystery why expenditure on administration is rising roughly three times faster than expenditure on nurses, doctors and hospital beds.

And just to confirm the problem, in 2009 an HSE survey revealed that there were 49,000 administrators for 62,000 front line workers. That's nearly one chief for every indian. No wonder tens of billions of additional funds haven't produced a notable upswing in health services.

I've had a look for this 2009 HSE survey but I cannot find it.
Can anyone confirm if that data is correct?

It seems insane... meaning it's fairly plausible.

Page 62 of this is the closest I can find

http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/Publications/corporate/AnnualReport2009.pdf

I'm in a hurry so I am not sure if i am reading it right, and the figures are different
could be a starting point

Godge

As with all of these reports, I don't think there is a full picture.

Before analysing it, you need to know what is a frontline worker and what is an administrator?

The person who drives the ambulance?
The person who organises your records when you are admitted for the doctor?
The person who wheels your bed/trolley to the ward?
The person on the ward who cleans the rooms to ensure they are infection-free?
The person who operates the x-ray machine?
The person in the technical office who reads and analyses your x-ray charts?
The person who does the blood test analysis?
The person who arranges your follow-up appointment?

As far as I know, most (possibly all) of the above are classed as administrators but they don't work in HR or Finance or something like that - they work on the frontline helping patients.

Somebody needs to do a proper study of the figures and work out more efficient ways of doing things.

antoobrien

Godge wrote: »

As far as I know, most (possibly all) of the above are classed as administrators but they don't work in HR or Finance or something like that - they work on the frontline helping patients.

Somebody needs to do a proper study of the figures and work out more efficient ways of doing things.

It looks like the report that O.P. has quoted from lumps in all non clinical staff as administrators. The HSE have broke it down further it in their report. From page 61 of the doc (reformatted to make it easier to read).

Management/Administrative consists of staff who are of direct service to the public and include consultants’ secretaries, outpatient department personnel, medical records personnel, telephonists and other staff who are engaged in front-line duties together with non-frontline staff in the following areas: Payroll, Human Resource Management (including training), Service Managers, IT Staff, General Management Support and Legislative and Information Requirements.

Analysis of composition of health service staff found that only 2-5% of personnel had ‘back office’ functions, 95-98% are ‘front of house’.

Other Patient and Client Care staff category includes ambulance service staff, health care attendants, care assistant and other direct care staff involved in day-to-day clinical services to patients and clients.

General Support Staff include such key services as Catering, Housekeeping, Laboratory Support Services, Maintenance and Portering without which clinical services could not operate.

On the other hand it's quite disturbing that the total cost of pay and pensions for the 109,753 WTEs employed by the HSE was €5.262 billion (clinical was 3.354 vs non clinical 1.198, superannuation 709m). On page 100 there's a breakdown of the clinical, non clinical & other patient/patient services pay, nursing takes up roughly half the clinical pay.