A significant rise in the number of senior managers in the health service has been revealed in new official figures.
They show that while the number of the most senior administrators at director and chief executive level in the HSE, voluntary hospitals and health service agencies fell significantly during the economic crash, it has now effectively returned to the previous level.
In September 2007 there were 41 people at director/chief executive level in the HSE, voluntary hospitals and agencies. By October 2012 this had fallen to 25 and increased to 27 in December 2014.
However, by December 2015 the number of directors/chief executives had risen to 42.
Fourfold increase
At assistant national director level, the number of personnel has increased more than fourfold since 2007.
In 2007 there were 22 assistant national directors, while by December 2014 this number had increased to 76.
However, within a year in December 2015, there were 95 staff at assistant national director level.
At general manager grade, the number of staff employed increased from 213 to 279 between December 2014 and December 2015.
Fianna Fáil has strongly criticised the increase at a time when it said waiting lists were growing and the numbers on trolleys in hospital emergency departments were rising.
The figures were released to the party's health spokesman, Billy Kelleher, in answer to a parliamentary question. He said the HSE needed to shift its priorities to frontline staff.
The figures also show that the numbers of personnel at grade VIII level, another management grade, stood at 720 in 2007, then dropped as low as 592 in October 2012 when the Government’s moratorium on recruitment was in place, but increased to 681 in December 2014 and again to 731 in December 2015.
The HSE said there were 1,327 staff at management level - grade VIII and above - compared with 8,100 doctors and nearly 35,000 nurses.
Reform programme
It said that in line with the Programme for Government, the health services were currently going through what was arguably the largest public sector reform programme in the country’s history.
"Hospital groups, CHOs [community healthcare organisations] and national service divisions require leadership and management capability in order to have appropriate governance in place to ensure the successful implementation of the reforms envisaged under (the strategy document) Future Health.
“Any one of these groups would, in their own right, be amongst the largest organisations in the State in terms of staff and budget and as such require management capability, as would be the case in any other industry or organisation of this scale.”
