New HSE chief says he is determined to stay within budget

The Health Service Executive is continuing to deliver on commitments contained in the organisation’s service plan, the new director general Paul Reid has said.

Mr Reid was commenting after The Irish Times reported on Tuesday that additional restrictions on spending for older people, those with disabilities and patients in acute hospitals were being put in place.

Newly-released documents showed the extra controls were planned as a response to the HSE’s financial deficit rising to nearly €170 million at the end of May, up from €116 million at the end of April.

Speaking at the launch of a report in Dublin on Tuesday on the cervical screening controversy, Mr Reid said there would be “no cost restraints” to implementing the recommendations of the report. Asked about the wider issue of spending controls, he said service levels promised in the HSE’s service plan, would not be curtailed.

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“We are continuing across all of our services in the HSE to deliver all of our commitments in our service plan in line with the budget that we have been allocated from Government,” he said.

Mr Reid added “there is no concern about costs cutting” while delivering “through our budget [on] all of the service commitments in the service plan”.

Official minutes of a cross-governmental oversight group on health spending showed senior officials spelling out the need for additional measures to rein in expenditure, citing also “serious concerns” over staffing increases in the health service.

Achieving financial break-even in the health service is a key goal of Mr Reid, who told senior managers shortly after his appointment that breaching budgets “can no longer be considered an option”.

The Opposition said the documents showed the Government planned to “control spending by making cuts to essential services”.

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the documents showed that “saving measures include the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of disability and older-person services, such as the training allowance for school-leavers with disabilities that is due to be axed in September”.