Public pay deal plan to shorten working week will cost ‘1,700 nursing jobs’, says HSE

The public service pay deal to reduce the working week for public sector staff to levels enjoyed before the 2010 economic crash will cost nearly €300m a year in health alone, the Health Service Executive has warned.

In documentation seen by The Irish Times, the HSE says the effects of reducing hours is equivalent to the loss of 1,700 nurses or 4,300 staff in total per annum.

“These hours will need to be replaced in order to maintain current levels of service and patient care,” the HSE said in a submission to an independent body established by the Government to examine the issue , adding that this could cost €296 million per year.

The estimates come just a fortnight after the HSE forecast that providing 10 days leave as a pandemic reward for health staff could cost the taxpayer €377 million.

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The Haddington Road deal increased the working week to 37 hours for those who had been working 35 hours or less up to that point. Those working more than 35 hours faced an increase of up to 39 hours.

However, the move to roll back the Haddington Road hours was a key demand of trade unions in talks that led to the new “Building Momentum” public service pay deal agreed last December.

Under the new public service agreement, the Haddington Road hours were not to be scrapped immediately, but an independent body was set up to report by the end of the year.

The Government, as part of the accord, agreed to provide €150 million next year to pay for the recommendations arising from the report of the independent body, which is chaired by former head of the Workplace Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey.

The HSE, in its submission, maintained that if working hours were restored, it would impact on plans to expand services and “initiatives brought in under Covid would be jeopardised”.

It argued that reduced hours for medical consultants would result in fewer patients being treated, longer waiting lists and reductions in the number of elective surgeries being undertaken.

The HSE said that in nursing alone, returning to the pre-Haddington Road arrangements would involve the “loss of 3.4 million hours” of the equivalent of 1,700 staff. It said this would cost an estimated €114 million per annum.

The HSE said the additional Haddington Road hours had been “majorly beneficial in maintaining services for patients, and in many instances broadening services” in the years since 2013. It said the hours were also used to cover maternity leave . It said at any one time about 1,000 nurses and midwives were on maternity leave.

The HSE said the Government had provided funding last year to recruit an additional 16,000 healthcare staff over the approved levels in 2020.

“The workforce is expanding at record levels but significant recruitment is still required. Lack of supply, particularly in certain grades, is a major challenge,” it said. “A reduction in hours will significantly add to this challenge.”

The HSE also maintained that a reduction in weekly hours would also lead to a rise in the cost of overtime, night duty and twilight hours payments.

“Cost of agency will also increase in a similar manner. Hourly rates of pay will increase. The estimated cost of restoring hours to pre- Haddington Road agreement levels is €4.66million annually to retain the current levels of overtime. There is also an estimated increase of €24.11 million caused by changing divisors for other forms of payments based on basic hourly pay such as weekend payments, night payments and agency costs.”

This would be almost twice the amount the Government has agreed to pay next year as part of a process of unwinding the requirement for working extra hours put in place under the Haddington Road agreement in 2013.