The department of health

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shnaek

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Anyone read Vincent Browne's article on the department of health in the business post yesterday? I found it fascinating. He points out that there are around 400 people working in the department, costing close to half a billion euros to run, and doing nothing but:

‘‘developing and articulating government policy on health and personal social services, and for the overall performance of the health service”, and supporting the minister in this regard.

Remember that the HSE has the job of implementing the policy, as the department of health transfered this responsibility to them. Talk about waste of money! And no doubt in this weeks budget the rest of us will be hit with tax rises to pay for this (and many other types of) nonsense.
 
The [broken link removed] might give you some idea of their functions. See [broken link removed] for a speel on each of the divisions with the department.

There is of course more to the health sector than the HSE. There are other agencies such as Breast Check, HIQA and (I think) Crisis Pregnancy Agency.
 
RainyDay said:
There is of course more to the health sector than the HSE. There are other agencies such as Breast Check, HIQA and (I think) Crisis Pregnancy Agency.
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I wonder do these agencies come under the department of health budget?

I had a quick look at that link too, RainyDay. It is interesting. For example, under Primary Care I the responsibilities listed are:

* Monitoring and Evaluation implementation of the Primary Care Strategy
* Oversight of Primary Care Capital Programme
* Policy on reproductive health issues including oversight of Crisis Pregnancy Agency
* Policy on optical and chiropody services
* Preparation of a framework for the regulation of Assisted Human Reproductions (AHR)
* Policy on GP services in GMS Scheme and other general practice policy issues

There are 4 staff responsible for this. I fail to see how they need to employ 4 full time staff to some up with policy on reproductive heath issues/GP services and optical and chiropody services. I mean, policy doesn't change every day? Or perhaps it does in the department of health!

For a department which implements little or nothing, whose raison d'etre is to come up with documents and policy (a failure, as far as we can see at present), a budget of half a billion seems to be ludicrous.
 
shnaek said:
I wonder do these agencies come under the department of health budget?
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My understand is yes, the DOHC has the overall budget and allocates budget to agencies such as HSE, Crisis Pregnancy Agency and other agencies such as Mental Health Commission, General Register Office, National Treatment Purchase Fund and Office for Tobacco Control.
shnaek said:
I had a quick look at that link too, RainyDay. It is interesting. For example, under Primary Care I the responsibilities listed are:

* Monitoring and Evaluation implementation of the Primary Care Strategy
* Oversight of Primary Care Capital Programme
* Policy on reproductive health issues including oversight of Crisis Pregnancy Agency
* Policy on optical and chiropody services
* Preparation of a framework for the regulation of Assisted Human Reproductions (AHR)
* Policy on GP services in GMS Scheme and other general practice policy issues

There are 4 staff responsible for this. I fail to see how they need to employ 4 full time staff to some up with policy on reproductive heath issues/GP services and optical and chiropody services. I mean, policy doesn't change every day? Or perhaps it does in the department of health!
Click to expand...

At a guess, the 4 staff consist of 1 Assistant Principal, 2 HEO/EOs and 1 CO. You'll probably find the AP keeps 1 or 2 of the policy areas for him/herself and spreads the rest between the HEO/EOs. Not exactly a massive team, IMHO. I do for example that major work was done in recent years in relation to assisted reproduction. I know there was an expert committee involved, and I guess the Dept provided a secretariat for this. They are also going to be involved in answering parlimentary questions, preparing speeches for ministers etc.

Can I make a suggestion? Give the AP in charge of this unit a call and find out what exactly they do and what takes up time? It really is just too easy to be a hurler on the ditch and snipe negatively without any real idea of what they do. Go have a chat, and then see what you think.
 
One in every 19 people who work in this country works in the health service (i.e. are paid by the state). I'm sure they are all doing a bang up job and deserve their pay increases.
It's a pity that all the Health Ministers we have had for the last 20 years are crap :rolleyes:
 
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