Tony Dorrian Workers Party Representative has called on the Department of Health to give a more detailed account for the 6,526,000 spent on Expert Consultants as this is an huge use of Public Funds.
Mr Dorrian said at a time when our health and social services are at breaking point and the department is seeking to redefine services to facilitate efficiency savings and have plans to reintroduce prescription charges and charging for home care services. To spend millions on so called expert consultants is outrageous. He continued given the number of senior executives employed across all the Trusts and arms length agencies, the public are entitled to know why the health service needs more than 300 associates to provide skills across a number of areas.
Mr Dorrian added the breakdown of the expertise is quite staggering as is the areas in which these consultants are required, the public are entitled to much more clarification and justification. It is important to know why there seems to be a skills deficit within the healthcare system. For example why would the service need to bring in outside consultants on recruitment and selection, investigations and grievances and change management. Have those with the necessary skills all been given early voluntary retirement or been made redundant.
Other areas of concern are estates and engineering given the number of problems with new buildings where have all the inhouse staff gone. Mentoring and actors as consultants on panels is mind boggling. The Department also needs to explain if these 300 Associate Consultants are made up largely of former health service senior managers who have left the service on full pensions. Because if their expertise is needed why were they allow to leave in the first place.
The Workers Party will be seeking a much fuller explanation from the department of health on this issue because it would seem on the face of this limited information that we have a service depleted of inhouse skills and expertise, and a very unhappy working environment with the numbers engaged on investigations and grievances. What has happened to Human Resources departments, have they also disappeared? Mr Dorrian finished by saying this expenditure on associate expertise and all existing structures now needs to be reviewed instead of the services to patients and service users.