HSE spent more than €600m on agency staff in 2022
A breakdown of the spend shows that the majority (€210m) went towards support services; €144m was spent on agency nursing staff and €119m was spent on agency medical/dental staff.
The HSE’s spend on agency staff has almost doubled in recent years, from around €390m in 2020 to €619m last year.
Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed the health service spent €390m on agency staff in 2020 and a further €461.7m between January and October 2021.
A fresh FOI request revealed the HSE spent €619m on agency staff in 2022.
A breakdown of the spend shows that the majority (€210m) went towards support services; €144m was spent on agency nursing staff and €119m was spent on agency medical/dental staff.
A further €100m went towards management/administration while €44m was spent on paramedical staff and €1m was spent on maintenance/technical staff.
Providing context for the spend, a spokesperson for the HSE said:
“The available supply in the labour market for the health workforce continues to be a challenge.
“Recruitment and retention of clinical, nursing and other key staff is a constant challenge and impacts adversely on the ability to maintain safe and effective services.
“Therefore, as part of the HSE’s overarching resourcing approach whereby direct employment does not meet the needs of service delivery requirements, agency staff are utilised,” the spokesperson added.
“This can be for a variety of reasons, including sick absence replacement both long and short term, to replace vacancies currently being actively recruited to, to replace maternity leave etc.
“More recently, subsequent to the government announcement to reverse the Haddington Road Agreement, this has placed additional resourcing requirements, with the replacement of lost hours in critical services areas, a priority.
“In advance of the filling of these hours via direct employees, there is a need to prioritise critical services for replacement through agency and overtime.
“Collectively, these give rise to the utilisation of agency resources however while simultaneously running large scale domestic and international recruitment campaigns to fill through direct employment.”
The HSE spokesperson revealed that, in a number of instances in recent times the HSE have been unable to fill a vacancy even via agency.
“The agencies have indicated that they are experiencing difficulty in recruiting themselves due to a lack of availability and also accommodation costs,” they said.
“The majority of agency spend is salary and statutory pay costs such as PRSI, holiday allowance etc.
“In line with the Protection of Employees (Part -Time Work) Act agency staff have the right to the same basic employment conditions, this includes basic pay, shift premiums, unsocial hours and Sunday rates.”
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