Cork TD’s concern at ‘out of control’ primary care waiting lists

A Cork TD has expressed concern at the lack of a workforce plan to address “out of control” waiting lists for primary care services.

Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide recently got figures from the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, showing that the longest wait-time in Ireland for physiotherapy treatment through primary care is in North Lee, Cork, at 369 weeks, and that all four areas of Cork have people waiting longer than three years for a psychology appointment.

He submitted a follow up question asking what was to be done about the issue, and a spokesperson for the minister Carroll MacNeill, told Mr Quaide that the increased pressure and demand on primary care therapy services was due to a number of reasons but particularly “the challenges related to recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals”.

They said that the government “is committed to building capacity in primary care therapy services”, by methods including recruiting and retaining additional staff numbers. However, they added that under the Pay and Numbers strategy: “Each of the six HSE health regions has its own budget, leadership team and responsibility for local decision-making, with a specified number of whole time equivalents (WTE) and can replace, recruit and prioritise staff within that approved number.” They added that they are focusing on expanding training places.

Mr Quaide said these additional training places will not materialise into HSE posts for several years.

“The crisis has been developing across disciplines and throughout health regions for years. Many services are now at breaking point, with waiting lists completely out of control. The minister’s response referred to ‘challenges related to recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals’, while failing to mention that the main impediment has been a series of recruitment restrictions imposed by successive governments, including her own,” he said

Mr Quaide said an example of this was that the minister “doubled down on recruitment restrictions imposed by the government’s Pay and Numbers Strategy”.

“This essentially means that HSE managers can only make up the massive shortfalls in primary care disciplines, such as psychology and occupational therapy, by redeploying clinicians from other services — not through the additional recruitment needed to address this crisis,” said Mr Quaide.