HSE West hospitals in 'serious financial problems' (Financial Year - irishtimes)

Liam Minihan, assistant national director for finance with the Health Service Executive, made his comment after confirming that net expenditure across the HSE West area – stretching from North Tipperary and Limerick north to Donegal – is €26.3 million over budget for the first quarter of this year.

Financial Year

Mr Minihan confirmed the spend on hospitals was €20.4 million over budget, with the community sector €5.5 million over. As a means of addressing the overspend at the acute hospitals, Mr Minihan said cost-containment plans were in place “and are planning significant seasonal closures”.

Budget Deficit

Mr Minihan confirmed that the overspend for the Midwest hospitals was 13 per cent, or €4.5 million over budget, with the overspend at Galway and Roscommon Hospital Group at 10 per cent or €4.1 million. He said the spend in the first three months of this year was €480 million – €26.3 million over the permitted budget of €453.65 million.

He said that by the end of March, 361 people had retired from the HSE West, which would save €34 million this year. The first-quarter spend was €17 million down on the same period last year, he added.

“The big problem for us in the community is the Fair Deal occupancy levels in nursing homes. We need the nursing homes to have 95 per cent occupancy to get our maximum commissioning funding and avoid incurring a deficit. We are running at 10 per cent below the 95 per cent and we are not recovering our costs there.”