Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 February 2024
3. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Health if he will ensure that a local recruitment campaign is carried out in south Tipperary for the National Ambulance Service; if the NAS will commit to providing a recruitment officer to visit schools and attend job recruitment seminars locally and develop local advertising to improve recruitment prospects in south Tipperary; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8947/24]
View answerI ask the Minister for Health if he will ensure a local recruitment campaign is carried out for the National Ambulance Service in south Tipperary and if the NAS will commit to improving recruitment processes, providing a recruitment officer to attend job recruitment seminars and visit local schools and developing an advertising campaign to recruit ambulance personal for south Tipperary.
I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I know he will join me in acknowledging the extraordinary commitment of the National Ambulance Service workers in delivering care for his constituents in south Tipperary and across the country. We are investing significantly in the National Ambulance Service. This year, investment will be approximately €227 million, which amounts to a €58 million increase in the lifetime of this Government.
Staffing has also increased by nearly 40% increase in the past eight years and just in the past few months, there has been another important increase.
To address the specific question about local workforce needs, the National Ambulance Service runs local targeted local advertising campaigns. In south Tipperary this has involved advertising through local radio and targeted recruitment advertising on social media platforms. The service has created a recruitment and retention working group for new recruitment campaigns for students and qualified paramedics, focusing on areas including south Tipperary.
I recently met Mr. Robert Morton, the director of the National Ambulance Service, to discuss future service development and identify further opportunities for increasing training capacity and recruitment. The National Ambulance Service college currently has 410 students at various stages of training, with 110 having commenced in the past few weeks, in January. It is great to see a pipeline of future paramedics and advanced paramedics. As the Deputy may be aware, the ambulance service is also working with several third level institutions to provide degree level courses. One such institution already does so. The service will certainly continue to expand its workforce and recruit, including as per the Deputy's question, in south Tipperary.
The national recruitment campaign has not led to significant improvements in staffing levels in south Tipperary. I also compliment the very hard work and dedicated service all the ambulance services provide across the country. What is difficult is that there are no efforts to recruit locally. The Minister said there was a recruitment campaign but the 45 km rule means that paramedics will be assigned to a base within 45 km of their home unless a recruitment drive happens locally. That is the problem.
There are huge difficulties in south Tipperary with regard to the staffing levels of our paramedic service. There are currently eight staff vacancies in the south Tipperary paramedic service, which is an awful lot in that area. Two of them are temporary but the remaining six are long-term vacancies which have not been filled. The difficulty is that there is no effort to recruit locally. There are recruitment campaigns but they have not been effective. The south Tipperary ambulance service covers Tipperary town, Cashel, Clonmel and paramedic bases. Other areas in the south east and around the country have a full complement of staff because they benefit from national recruitment drives. However, an urgent recruitment drive is required in south Tipperary to ensure the area has services and to fill the urgent vacancies. The Minister mentioned social media. The recruitment drives have been have not been effective. We need an officer to visit schools, colleges, employment seminars and so on.
South Tipperary can certainly be looked at in terms of expansion. The National Ambulance Service works from bases in Cashel, Clonmel and Tipperary. The service in south Tipperary has a total allocated workforce of 46 and is recruiting locally for some vacancies. For example, it has been advertising on Spin Southwest and on Beat 102-103. It has had targeted local advertising campaigns through social media.
The Deputy's reference to the 45 km rule is relevant and there is no question that in some parts it could limit the number of people who can apply for these jobs. On the reverse side, it has been very successful in retaining staff. The latest note I have, which we put together when preparing for the Deputy's question this morning, indicates that the National Ambulance Service now has the highest level of retention of any part of the HSE. The service believes the 45 km rule has been an important part of that.
The main issue is local recruitment, which the National Ambulance Service has not undertaken seriously in south Tipperary for a number of years. The only recruitment is what south Tipperary ambulance personnel have done themselves but they have limited local resources and the staff are under constraints due to the number of vacancies.
The National Ambulance Service needs to be in schools and at job recruitment seminars as standard. That is simply not happening. We know that the 45 km rule has benefits but it is impacting in this case because people who live in Waterford or Limerick when they are recruited will obviously stay where they are because it suits them. There needs to be niche area recruitment by the National Ambulance Service in south Tipperary because it is not happening. The Minister mentioned Spin Southwest and Beat 102-103. While those stations cover the south-east, they are not local. We have Tipp FM and Tipp Midwest radio stations and local newspapers. We need to be more focused on south Tipperary. Beat 102-103 covers the whole south east and is listened to in Tipperary but not by the people we want to recruit to this service because it is for a younger age group. We need to be more focused on south Tipperary to allow the good personnel to continue their excellent work.
I will bring the Deputy's suggestions on engaging with schools and so on back to the National Ambulance Service and ask it to redouble its efforts in terms of local recruitment. I acknowledge that in spite of the fact the National Ambulance Service has these vacant posts, the ambulance service in south Tipperary has been doing very well. We can look at two of the main indicators that are important for patients in terms of response times, namely, purple calls, which cover life-threatening incidents in cardiac and respiratory, and red calls, which cover all other life-threatening emergencies. In 2023, the percentage of responses recorded within 19 minutes increased on the previous year from 65% to 70% for purple calls and from 37% to 41% for red calls. It is worth acknowledging the services are doing better. I will take the Deputy's suggestions back to see what further can be done to hire into those posts.
There is one priority question left, Question No. 4. With the permission of the House, we will take Question No. 5 from Deputy Burke first and then take Question No. 4.
