Coronavirus 2021 health service costs over budget by €640m

Covid-19 costs in the health service ran up to €640 million over budget last year, but this was offset by significant underspending on recruitment and missing targets to increase hospital and homecare capacity.

The Health Service Executive has provided the Department of Health with provisional financial information for last year, which is understood to project a total deficit of between €80 million and €140 million.

A target to add 10,000 healthcare staff during the year was missed by a significant margin, with the final figure expected to be about 6,100.

The reasons given for this are understood to include the impact of the Covid-19 surges and the demand for staff to work in the testing-and-tracing system and in vaccination centres.

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The Government has been told that the overspend of between €600 million and €640 million on Covid-19 matters has been offset by a €500 million underspend arising from slower recruitment, less elective care taking place due to the pandemic and the failure to meet targets to increase hospital capacity.

Testing and tracing

The cost of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign came in some €430 million over budget, while the spend on testing and tracing was €270 million higher than expected. The spend on the hotel quarantine system and providing a grant for student nurses who worked during the pandemic added a further €70 million to the overspend, but personal protective equipment costs were expected to be some €100 million less than forecast.

Given the fact that some €200 million was being spent every month on Covid-19 matters in the latter part of last year, there is understood to be concern about whether the level of pandemic funding allocated for this year, some €1 billion including contingency funds, will be sufficient.

A number of Government departments are working together to establish their expected Covid-19 costs for 2022, and it is understood there will be discussions as part of this on the merits of continuing to provide PCR testing for free.

Ministers are expected to be briefed this week on HSE spending, including an update on hospital bed capacity.

Some €426 million was provided as part of Budget 2021 to fund 1,146 additional acute beds, 135 sub-acute beds, 66 critical care beds and 1,250 community beds. The actual spend, however, is likely to be about €247 million on 813 acute beds, 73 sub-acute beds , 42 critical care beds and 834 community beds.

Recorded meetings

A total of €133 million was set aside in Budget 2021 to fund the delivery of five million extra homecare package hours, but the actual spending is likely to be in the region of €45 million on 1.8 million additional hours.

The figures emerged amid a continuing controversy about recorded meetings of Department of Health officials discussing their concerns about missed HSE recruitment targets as well oversight of the €21 billion health budget. The information is the subject of a number of disclosures made by Shane Corr, a civil servant in the department.

In a statement on Sunday, the department said it was aware of the alleged recordings, that no official gave their consent to be recorded and that publishing the details was “a direct violation of individual privacy”.

It said no recordings have been made available and it therefore could not say if they had been “doctored in any way”. “This makes it difficult to validate or respond constructively.”