{"id":662436,"date":"2026-10-22T20:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T20:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662436\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T20:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T20:44:11","slug":"no-link-between-healthcare-staff-recruitment-and-hospital-performance-says-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662436\/","title":{"rendered":"No link between healthcare staff recruitment and hospital performance, says Minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> has claimed there is no real link between healthcare staff recruitment and hospital performance.<\/p>\n

Healthcare dominated D\u00e1il<\/a> Leaders\u2019 Questions on Thursday, with Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> finance spokesman Pearse Doherty<\/a> referring to a 21 per cent rise in the number of over-75s who have spent more than 24 hours in emergency departments this year, saying it was \u201cshameful\u201d and \u201ccruel\u201d that an elderly person \u201cwould have to go through this\u201d. <\/p>\n

Claiming the situation had worsened under Carroll MacNeill\u2019s leadership, Doherty said senior managers in the health system had been unable to recruit since June due to HSE<\/a> employment restrictions and were warning of risks to the safety delivery of services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Midwest alone there are 350 posts that are vacant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The way senior managers were speaking out was \u201cunprecedented\u201d, he said, and they were doing so because \u201cthey\u2019re telling us they have no other choice\u201d and are \u201cvery, very worried\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carroll MacNeill said demand had increased in every area and every hospital. Giving detailed statistics about a number of hospitals, she added that \u201cthe reality is that there are some hospitals that have not improved that need to improve\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me why is Beaumont<\/a> different to Cork [University Hospital]<\/a>,\u201d she said to Doherty. \u201cBoth of them have recruited. Both of them have the same demand pressures. Both of them have needs for the future into 2027 [which the budget] has delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Beaumont have nine people on trolleys, whereas Cork have four. They are using things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0More than 70,000 people left Irish emergency departments before completing treatmentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She said St James\u2019s Hospital<\/a>, \u201cone of the biggest, busiest hospitals in this country, in an area of particular socio-economic disadvantage\u201d, has 10 people on trolleys, \u201cbut Cork has 44\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd bizarrely, the ones that consistently don\u2019t improve, ie Cork, have had the highest recruitment,\u201d with 233 people recruited, Carroll MacNeill said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if there was a correlation between recruitment and performance, I\u2019d agree with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour health spokeswoman Marie Sherlock said hospitals \u201care terrified of what\u2019s in store this winter\u201d as she accused the Minister and the Department of Public Expenditure of failing to properly plan the health budget.<\/p>\n

She said Budget 2027<\/a> was based on a 2 per cent growth in demand when \u201cactual demand\u201d far surpasses that, with emergency department admissions up 6.75 per cent this year and a 10 per cent increase in outpatient appointments.<\/p>\n

Sherlock said she had responses from the HSE that \u201cthey\u2019re only forecasting demand for next year now after they get their budget allocation. No wonder the health service is in crisis. No commercial viable business will ever operate like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

She added it made no sense that there is an embargo on recruiting graduate nurses when agency staff payments are \u201csurging ahead by \u20ac255 million\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has claimed there is no real link between healthcare staff recruitment and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[15049,3775,103,397,396,2120,61,60,1421,19383,3415],"class_list":["post-662436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-dail-eireann","tag-fine-gael","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","tag-pearse-doherty","tag-sinn-fein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}