Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DON’T LET IT DIE
» 1,800 jobs not being filled » Suicide strategy put on hold » Agency staff plugging gaps
ULSTER health staff are facing “crisis” conditions due to hundreds of unfilled jobs, it has been revealed.
NHS boss Valerie Watts warned yesterday 1,800 posts are lying vacant with agency workers plugging gaps.
Unison’s Conor Mccarthy said some employees are quitting as they “can get paid more stacking shelves in Lidl”.
It also emerged a strategy to tackle the region’s high rate of suicide is on hold due to the paralysis at Stormont.
Porters can get paid more stacking shelves at Lidl CONOR MCCARTHY UNISON YESTERDAY
THE NHS is facing a “crisis” over the number of unfilled jobs, a senior official has admitted.
In Northern Ireland around 1,800 posts are lying vacant.
And Health and Social Care Board chief executive Valerie Watts said: “We are facing into a bit of a resourcing crisis in terms of the number of vacancies we are carrying across the system.”
She added the service wants to recruit more people to transform areas like nursing and social care.
This week the Department of Health announced what it termed a “new era” of GP care. The NHS plans to recruit 200 extra posts for new multi-disciplinary teams involving physiotherapists and mental health specialists in surgeries in Co Down and the North West.
Ms Watts joined other health officials giving evidence at Westminster to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of MPS.
An extra £100million has been set aside to overhaul the NHS as part of the DUP’S confidence and supply agreement to support the minority Tory Government in key votes.
Around a quarter of the money earmarked to transforming health care has been used so far but most of the spending will take place in the last quarter of this year.
However, officials said measures tackling the high suicide rate, improving social care and reforms to set budgets over longer periods have not yet been introduced because no ministers are in place at Stormont.
They admitted it had been challenging to properly allocate money which they were not involved in negotiating. The £100million boost includes:
£30million to stem an increase in waiting times
£15million for primary care £15million in workforce development, and
£30million to reform hospital and community services. The remainder covers areas like ill-health prevention and quality improvement measures.
In the absence of ministers decisions have not been taken on issues including charging for services.
The extra cash has been used to
pilot steps in certain areas. Ms Watts added a “comprehensive list” of transformation projects has been drawn up.
She said: “These are directly transformative in nature and considerable effort has gone into preparing the business cases.” Officials admitted reforming a complex health and social care system did not happen overnight and preparatory work was needed which was not always immediately available.
Unison’s Conor Mccarthy claimed ongoing delays in pay reform are having a serious impact on recruitment and retention.
He added: “The Trusts are trying to tempt nurses back to Northern Ireland who are working in England and Wales.
“Many of them are asking why would they bother to come home for less pay for the same job. There’s a major recruitment issue with the shared services model we’re using to recruit.
“You’re talking six to nine months to recruit nurses, porters, cleaners because the system is so disjointed.
“In the meantime nurses go off and work for agencies or get another job.
“Then you’ve agency nurses plugging the gaps at a huge cost. Retention is an issue too when porters hear they can get paid more stacking shelves in Lidl.”
Mr Mccarthy said pay reform cannot be blamed entirely on the Stormont impasse as it had been an issue for much longer. He added: “The permanent secretary may hide behind this ruling after the Arc21 court case but that was controversial.
“There was a pressure group opposing it. There’s no pressure group opposing health service staff getting equal pay.
“This could be signed off and the money released if they wanted and that would have a major impact on recruitment and retention of staff.”
£30m To help reduce the waiting lists
£15m For both primary care and workforce development