HSE to face 'exceptionally challenging' year as government funding falls short of closing deficit

HSE CEO Bernard Gloster

THE HEAD OF the HSE has said that next year will be “exceptionally challenging” for the health service financially as government funding falls short.

The Oireachtas Committee on Health has heard this morning from CEO Bernard Gloster that the HSE will start 2024 with a deficit of hundreds of millions of euro despite a top-up from the government on the figures announced in the Budget in September.

Budget 2024 featured a €22.5 billion healthcare budget, which included €100 million for new measures — an amount widely criticised as insufficient.

The Department of Health had bid for an additional €2 billion to maintain existing levels of service (ELS) into next year. However, it received less than half of that (€708 million) in ELS funding.

The committee previously heard that the health service would face a deficit of around €1.5 billion by the end of the year and a further deficit of around €1.3 billion next year.

Yesterday, the government announced supplementary funding for healthcare of €960 million.

Gloster said the supplementary funding was “very welcome” and would “more or less cash out the year”.

However, there will still be a shortfall of around €500 million carried into next year as a debt.

“It will be exceptionally challenging,” Gloster told TDs and Senators this morning. “There is no doubt it’s going to be a very challenging year.”

“Most budget-holding areas have exceeded their targets this year.”

The committee convened to discuss the expected seasonal rise in respiratory diseases and other illnesses this winter and how prepared the hospital system is to deal with them.

Gloster said there is “little doubt that as we face this coming period, trolley waits and pressures will be a feature of our services”.

He said the HSE’s focus is to “ensure that these are not only to the minimum extent possible but also that there is a pathway to continuous improvement,” Gloster said.

Around the same number of people are presenting to the health service as last year but more of them are being admitted, which has meant an average of 40 more patients needing an acute bed each day (a 4.4% increase on last year), the committee heard.

Trolley waits have dropped by an average of 21 (6.5%) per day year-on-year and delayed transfers of care has improved from 600 at the start of the year to 474 in the past month.

Gloster said that “older and more frail people are to be the most urgent focus of all of our services, including where necessary their care experience while in Emergency Departments awaiting admission”.

“There is no doubt we can do better and recent indications are proof of this.”

The HSE is urging people who are eligible for flu and Covid-19 vaccines to avail of them as the spread of both viruses is expected to increase over the winter months — in particular, people with long-term health conditions and healthcare workers.

Only one in ten people who are immuno-compromised are currently vaccinated, according to the HSE.

As of 1 November, only 11.5% of HSE-employed healthcare workers had availed of the Covid-19 autumn booster vaccine and 24.3% had received the flu vaccine.