Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Health

5th October 2014 - Olivia Mitchell TD

To ask the Minister for Health if he has given consideration to providing temporary cover for maternity leave of front line staff in the Health Service Executive’s disability sector, particularly in the cases of early intervention services such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy for children as the delay without such intervention can have a very negative result on those who rely on such services?

The health service as a whole has experienced reduced employment levels since 2007. The Moratorium on recruitment has had an impact on the provision of multi-disciplinary services throughout the health service. In relation to Maternity Leave, there is little capacity within current resources, caseloads and model of service provision to take over the caseload of a therapist who has left the employ of the HSE or who is on maternity leave. The moratorium does not allow for replacement of staff for therapists who go on maternity leave, although, in this situation, local services will endeavour to put arrangements in pace to provide, as far as possible, continuity of service provision. However, in a predominately female workforce, this situation can have a significant impact on the provision of multidisciplinary services to people with disabilities.

The HSE continues to address the reduction in staffing numbers through a number of measures including;

Minimising the impact on front line services by targeting where possible, reductions in non service impacting areas.
Maximising the flexibility provided under the Public Service Agreement (PSA) 2010-2014.
The appointment of an additional 1,025 whole time equivalent staff in a number of priority areas such as primary care, mental health, audiology.
Continued implementation of the Clinical Care Programmes.
Increased use of staff redeployment
A focused approach to addressing staff absenteeism and implementing revised sick leave arrangements
Initiatives in the use of shared services and combined services.

However, there is a growing incidence of unfilled posts that is impacting both on the level of services that can be provided to people with disabilities and on their access to these services, particularly in the area of Speech and Language Therapy, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy.

In an effort to address this situation in the short term and ensure that services are delivered in as equitable a manner as possible within available resources the HSE has introduced a number of initiatives such as therapists increasing clinic based work instead of domiciliary work and providing family centred interventions in a group as opposed to a one-to-one setting, whenever possible. Where resources permit the HSE has also supported the temporary filling of posts for a defined period of time.

In the longer term the reconfiguration of children’s disability services into geographically-based early-intervention and school-aged teams as part of the Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People Programme will ensure an equitable delivery of services. The roll out of this Programmewill entail targeted investment of €4m and the provision of 80 additional therapy staff, to increase services for children with all disabilities.

Local Health Areas have received primary notification in respect of approved and funded service developments as provided for in the National Service Plan 2014. The filling of these posts is not impacted by the Government Employment Moratorium and recruitment is underway. This measure will have a positive impact on the provision of clinical services for all children requiring access to health related supports.

Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Health

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