The Staff Panel of the ICTU Healthcare Unions met with the HSE on the 25th of July 2024 regarding the Pay & Numbers Strategy which was announced on the 10th of July 2024.
The unions advised the employer that their failure to consult properly with the unions in line with the Information & Consultation Directive, and the decision to supress 2,000 posts, is entirely unacceptable and that as a result of these actions they are now in dispute.
The unions have stated that under the proposed strategy all vacant posts as of the 31st of December 2023 have now been supressed, meaning thousands of healthcare posts throughout the country are deemed no longer to exist.
Albert Murphy, Chair of the Staff Panel and INMO Director of Industrial Relations stated
The HSE’s announcement of the Pay & Numbers Strategy without engagement with the unions is in breach of the law. But, more importantly, the decision to supress over two thousand funded posts means that there will be significant gaps and shortages in critical care areas of the HSE over the next number of months.
The Employment Control Framework that has been put in place by the HSE will also mean that there will be substantial delays in posts being filled in the remaining part of 2024.
This is placing the HSE staff under considerable pressure and gives rise to significant concerns in relation to patient safety. It is also placing an already over-burdened workforce in an intolerable position.
Head of Fórsa’s Health and Welfare Division Ashley Connolly stated
Their consistent failure to engage with worker representatives on workforce planning, their reliance on crude and damaging employment controls, on top of a poor record on communicating with staff, has meant that there is no trust remaining between management and healthcare staff.
It only makes the challenge of health service delivery harder, it's in nobody's interest to run a national health system like this.
Head of SIPTU's Health Division Kevin Figgis stated
The decision to suppress previously approved posts from the health service will result in services ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ to meet service challenges. Our members believe the policy decisions on recruitment recently taken by the HSE, Department of Health and Government will result in a greater focus on outsourcing of our members’ work within the health service.
Our unions are committed to working together to defend our collective membership and to ensure that services are staffed safely to protect patients, service users and healthcare workers.