Dáil told consultants 'funnelling' public hospital patients onto private lists
Hospital consultants are 'creating their own private companies and diverting patients from public waiting lists', the Dáil has heard.
Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers confirmed to Aontu leader Peadar Tóibín that the HSE has ordered a 'pause' on this behaviour.
A HSE internal audit report completed in 2024 called Non-Recurring Funded Waiting List Initiatives was given to Deputy Tóibín following a parliamentary question to Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.
He told the Dáil that he had been told by people working in the health service that there were 'senior healthcare professionals at the moment, including some consultants, who are creating their own private companies and diverting patients from public waiting lists to their newly created private companies'.
He continued: 'It has been alleged in one case that a consultant, who created a private firm to read scans, used the hospital public waiting lists to funnel work through rostering into his own private company.
'It is an incredible situation and a major conflict of interest for anybody in a public role to be doing this in relation to their own businesses.
'The Minister must admit that we cannot allow anybody on the public payroll to be in a position where they are creating a private company and funnelling public work to their own private company.
'An internal audit report carried out by the office of the chief internal auditor was written less than a year ago, and its job was to ascertain if private companies were used to provide additional services such as this.
'It found that there was a major breakdown in terms of compliance and value for money.
'For example, UHL was found not to have conducted an open procurement process with €14.2 million paid to these types of providers just in one year, 2023.
'Management confirmed that there were no dedicated procurement functions within the group for this.
'In UHL, two private providers were owned or part-owned by two separate UHL employees. A third company was owned by an HSE employee with another hospital.'
Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers, who was taking Leaders' Questions in place of the Taoiseach, stated that the matters raised by Deputy Tóibín were 'very serious and need to be properly and thoroughly followed through by the HSE'.
He said: 'There are references there to conflicts of interest and value-for-money concerns, which are extremely concerning.
'Under initiatives to reduce waiting lists, the HSE can outsource to private hospitals under the surgical services framework and the private provider framework.'
Minister Chambers also stated that Bernard Gloster, the CEO of the HSE, had 'issued an instruction that all insourcing where existing staff are hired, engaged or paid by a separate entity to work on initiatives in their own place or type of work must now be paused'.
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