Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has assured the public that Cork University Hospital (CUH) meets all necessary safety standards following warnings from its chief executive of a risk to patients from a shortfall in staffing levels.
The Minister said more than 200 extra staff had been recruited so far this year, more than any other Model 4 hospital – the highest level of acute public hospital service – in the country, while CUH met all the required safety standards in terms of staffing across a number of metrics.
“CUH has hired now 233 people – that is more than any other Model 4 hospital in the country, and that includes Beaumont, the Mater, St James and UHL (University Hospital Limerick) and by some distance – it’s hired 500 people over the last two years.”
Carroll MacNeill and Taoiseach Michéal Martin were at the opening of a new surgical hub at the hospital when she addressed the concerns raised by chief executive Jennifer Kearney last month about delays in filling vacancies.
In a letter to the HSE, first reported by RTÉ, Kearney said the hospital, which employs more than 5,000 staff, was down 1,053 employees. She warned that this would impact the levels of service and care this winter.
“I do not believe that the current position is sustainable, nor do I believe it is safe to enter the winter period with the level of staffing uncertainty that currently exists,” wrote Kearney in the letter to Priscilla Lynch, integrated healthcare area manager for HSE South West.
Kearney explained that, due to “increasingly bureaucratic processes” and “a prolonged suppression of recruitment”, some 348 whole-time equivalent (WTE) posts had not been filled despite funding having already been secured.
Of the total 1,053 affected posts, she noted that a further 249 were approved but unfunded; 202 posts identified in National Service Plans had never been filled; 166 WTE were on maternity leave; and 88 staff were out on long term sickness leave.
“There is a very real danger that we become focused on whether a post has passed through the correct approval gateway, rather than asking the more fundamental question: Is the hospital adequately staffed to provide safe care to patients?” Kearney wrote.
But Carroll MacNeill said she had confidence in both Kearney and in CUH’s ability to deliver the treatment and care necessary as she catalogued the various checks carried out at the hospital.
“We immediately checked our National Patient Safety Office [once notified of Kearney’s concerns]. There has been no increase in any of the markers that you might expect to see in a hospital that was operating unsafely,” she said.
“We immediately checked with the National Mortality Register. There has been no uptick in incidents there that would be unexpected in any form. Hiqa (the Health Information and Quality Authority) obviously have taken an interest in this.”
She added that the Safe Staffing Framework had been checked, a metric assessing the number of nursing staff relative to patient needs.
“There is no issues there; it is fully implemented and then, of course, we had [HSE chief clinical officer] Colm Henry come and do a full safety analysis, and again, he has highlighted no incidents to us so by every metric that it is possible for us to have, Cork has been safe all year.”