Latest news with #insourcing
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
Children's Health Ireland funding from NTPF will resume imminently, says Department of Health
Funding aimed at tackling waiting lists at hospitals operated by Children's Health Ireland (CHI) provided by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) will recommence imminently, the Department of Health has said. The NTPF suspended payments for what is known as insourcing arrangements at CHI on foot of an internal report that suggested irregularities about the operation of the scheme. Insourcing is where the NTPF buys care services to treat patients on waiting lists. This is provided in public hospitals outside core working hours or at weekends, and by staff in their own time. Staff and hospitals are paid additional money for providing these services. The NTPF on Friday said that up to May it had paid for 115 children per week to be seen at special outpatient clinics at CHI hospitals. It said at the same time three children per week had been treated as an inpatient or day case under arrangements it had funded. READ MORE Until mid May this year it is understood that the NTPF paid €375,000 as part of insourcing arrangements at CHI. It denied reports that 480 children per week had been funded each week for treatment at CHI until the suspension was put in place last week. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: 'The numbers mentioned reflect the insourcing initiatives approved to CHI, to reduce waiting lists through this mechanism. 'It does not, however, accurately reflect the actual level of insourcing activity that has so far taken place in 2025. 'Information from the NTPF is that only 64 inpatient and day case procedures (from a total of 2,700 approved for the year) have been progressed to date. 'In the case of outpatient department appointments, National Treatment Purchase Fund has advised that there are approximately 115 appointments per week being delivered in this way.' The Department of Health said any patient already scheduled before the temporary suspension was put in place would be treated as planned. 'We anticipate that the funding of insourcing by the National Treatment Purchase Fund at CHI will recommence imminently', the Department of Health said.
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
State's NTPF suspends special funding at CHI over controversy around abuse of waiting lists
The State fund responsible for reducing waiting times at public hospitals has suspended all funding for private services at Children's Health Ireland (CHI) hospitals under 'insourcing arrangements' over concerns at the group. The move follows the controversy around a hospital consultant who allegedly breached HSE guidelines by referring patients he was seeing in his public practice to weekend clinics he was operating separately. The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has suspended all funding for 'insourcing arrangements' at the children's hospital group on foot of concerns raised about how such schemes have been operated in the past. The NTPF aims to cut waiting times by paying private practices to treat patients on public waiting lists. READ MORE Insourcing is where public hospital facilities and staff, such as in CHI, are funded by the NTPF to provide additional services, outside core working hours, to treat those waiting longest for care. The NTPF receives more than €200 million each year to pay for the treatment in the public and private systems for patients on long waiting lists. On Tuesday, the fund said that following 'serious concerns' raised over an internal report drawn up by the children's hospital group in 2021 - but not published or circulated - it had 'immediately placed a temporary pause on all insourcing work with CHI'. It said it had initiated 'a comprehensive review of all insourcing work with CHI to gather the necessary assurances regarding compliance, value for money and appropriate use of NTPF funding mechanisms'. The NTPF does not provide details of payments made to individual hospitals so the amount provided to the CHI group over recent years is not known publicly. The fund said the key criteria covered for insourcing programmes include that the funding is targeted at the longest waiting public patients. It also stipulates that all insourcing activities are being carried out strictly outside of core activity and are not displacing or overlapping with services already funded under the HSE's national service plan. No costs already funded by the HSE, including capital or core-funded staff costs, are allowed to be included in NTPF reimbursement claims. All staffing arrangements must be line with public pay policy and comply with HSE consolidated pay scales for core hours, overtime and premium payments. The NTPF said that it was 'liaising with CHI at the highest level' to obtain and review these assurances and is in close contact with the Department of Health and the HSE.
The Guardian
01-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Insourcing is essential for rail nationalisation
Sarah Nankivell is correct when she says that rail nationalisation must succeed (A great prize, but a great risk: why we all need the nationalised South Western Railway to work, 28 May). While the nationalisation of South Western Railway and the government's commitment to a publicly owned Great British Railways are welcome first steps, this is not the end of the line. The continued outsourcing of essential services – such as track and train improvements, cleaning, security and elements of station staffing – perpetuates a two-tier workforce and undermines the goals of public ownership. These outsourced roles often come with poverty wages, a lack of sick pay and inadequate pension provisions, disproportionately affecting workers from black and minority ethnic communities. Outsourcing also drains public funds. According to RMT analysis, outsourcing and subcontracting firms extract about £400m annually in profits from rail contracts. This is money that could be reinvested into the railway system to improve services and reduce fares. There is growing support for an alternative to outsourcing supported by Labour's pledge to preside over the 'biggest wave of insourcing for a generation'. The Welsh government has already begun to insource rail services, while the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is actively considering insourcing thousands of tube cleaners. For rail nationalisation to succeed, integrating and insourcing all aspects of our railways into public hands must be the DempseyRMT general secretary I do not believe for an instant that renationalising the train operating companies will either make the trains run better or reduce ticket prices. The performance of my local company, Northern, which has been in the public sector for a good while now, is proof of that ('New dawn': first train service renationalised under Labour begins, 25 May). But it is worth calling out the Conservative party claims that private ownership has kept costs down for the lie that it is. Before privatisation in 1994, British Rail received a taxpayer subsidy of under £1bn. And it was falling. Post-privatisation, this soared to over £5bn at one point and is today still far higher than in 1994, even though, according to the Department for Transport's own figures, rail fares had risen by about a fifth in real terms by 2017, delivering an additional 'hidden subsidy' of £2bn per year because of the higher prices travellers are paying. The challenge now is achieving financial stability for the rail network in a post-pandemic world where fewer commuters are buying season tickets and fewer business trips are being made in favour of web-based virtual meetings. At least the dividends and grotesque executive salaries siphoned out of the industry by the private sector over the past 30 years will be available to help balance the WhitehouseBarnsley, South Yorkshire
