Holles St is ‘not accountable to the HSE’... even if it gets €49m a year in funding!
DESPITE receiving €49million in funding from the HSE, the National Maternity Hospital said it believes it is not ‘accountable’ to the State body.
The figure represents 70% of the hospital’s funding – and yet the NMH consistently outlines its independence throughout the response it issued to the HSE audit.
It said the ‘hospital is not a HSE hospital’ and refuted any reference to it as a ‘Statefunded entity’.
The audit stated that some of the points laid out in the NMH’s response included that:
The hospital is not a HSE hospital, nor a ‘State-funded entity’, as it is variously referred to throughout the report. The hospital is neither accountable to the HSE for its governance nor for its day-to-day running.
Over 30% of the hospital’s funding comes from non-HSE sources. The hospital deals with both public and private patients and the income generated from the private element subsidises the costs of providing the public service.
The hospital is a private entity and is entitled to subsidise the public facility with private funds in circumstances where the monies from the HSE are insufficient to sustain the hospital.
Income from private activities actually subsidises the public activity. This renders the assertions and unsubstantiated conclusions in the report all the more
‘Erroneous conclusions’
disingenuous, according to the hospital.
In a response to the Draft HSE Internal Audit Report written on August 26 in 2015, the NMH describes itself as an ‘independent voluntary hospital’ which is ‘one of a number of hospitals in Ireland which are not HSE entities’.
It said: ‘The employees of those hospitals are not employed by the Health Service Executive but rather are employees of the particular hospital in which they work.’
The NMH added: ‘The report draws seriously erroneous conclusions, many of which are gravely damaging, both to the hospital and its staff.
‘These erroneous conclusions relate not only to the substance of findings contained in the report, but also to the manner in which it describes how the hospital has engaged with the HSE in relation to the matters that are the subject of the report.’
The response also highlights that the hospital partially receives funding through a service level agreement (SLA). And it is under this agreement which the ‘HSE purchases certain specific services from the hospital in exchange for funding’.
The NMH said: ‘The hospital is responsible and accountable to the HSE and to the State for the proper management of the funds received under this SLA. This is a matter which the Executive Committee of the hospital takes very seriously’.
But the hospital reiterated its ‘right to engage in other activities outside of the services it provides to the HSE and to receive income in respect of such activities’.
In its response to the draft report, the NMH states: ‘The report contains a fundamental flaw in failing to take into account the independent and autonomous nature of the hospital and its status as a non-HSE hospital.’
A spokesperson for the NMH yesterday reiterated its independence and said they ‘disagree with much of the opinion expressed in the reports’.
The spokesperson added: ‘The nub of our disagreement arises from the failure of the reports to accept that the National Maternity Hospital is not owned by the HSE but is an independent entity’.