The Public Service Agreements 2010 - 2016 provide for the increased use of staff redeployment arrangements within the health service and across different sectors of the public service.
All staffing arrangements have to be considered in the light of the current budgetary pressures in the health service and the need to reduce the numbers employed throughout the public sector. This has been combined with a firm focus on improving public service efficiency and effectiveness. The Haddington Road Agreement provides for health service staff to increase their working hours. The value ascribed to this element of the Agreement is in the region of five million hours annually for the health workforce as a whole.
The Deputy will be aware that public hospitals are being reorganised into more accountable hospital groups. I am confident that the group structure will allow for more efficient deployment of human resources, facilitating effective and flexible use of staff, thus allowing a better response to service needs.
The HSE has been asked to respond directly to the Deputy in relation to the procedures applicable in the health service for such redeployment.