Two more hospitals asked to clarify their NTPF use, Public Accounts Committee told

TWO MORE HOSPITALS have been asked to provide the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), officials told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today.

Politicians despaired at the Public Accounts Committee as representatives from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), struggled to answer several questions on the of scandals that have rocked the organisations over the last year. 

Specifically, the CEO of the NTPF Fiona Brady and the CEO of CHI, Lucy Nugent, were grilled on the current review being conducted on NTPF funded clinics in children’s hospitals. 

Brady said that two hospitals have been asked to provide further clarification on their insourcing clinic arrangements. 

The NTPF will then prepare a report on its review of insourcing arrangements in all public hospitals. 

That comes after issues were found with the insourcing arrangements in a CHI NTPF funded clinic, and subsequent revelations about NTPF funded clinics in Beaumont Hospital and Naas General Hospital, which saw funding for these clinics being suspended for both hospitals. 

Yesterday at the Health Committee it emerged that a consultant in Naas General Hospital was paid per patient, which goes against the rules of the funding scheme. 

Fine Gael TD Grace Boylan asked CHI’s CEO Lucy Nugent if NTPF funding is “incentivising workarounds, where core public duties are de-prioritised in favour of better paid insourced clinics”. 

Nugent said that the first step that’s taken in establishing a clinic is ensuring that “core activity” is maximised (meaning that the relevant public healthcare service is running at optimal capacity). 

Boylan further asked if patients who are waiting the longest have been de-prioritised by NTPF funded clinics. 

“No, no, we prioritise patients according to clinical need, unfortunately that means some patients with less complex conditions may be waiting longer, that’s of concern” Nugent replied.

Independent TD Catherine Connolly grilled both the former CEO of CHI Eilish Hardiman and Nugent on why Nugent, who has only served half a year in the role, was not immediately made aware of the unpublished 2021 report that reported that CHI had a “toxic” culture, and first flagged issues with how NTPF clinics in one hospital were being used. 

“There’s nobody here today who can tell me why the new CEO wasn’t aware of this report, which has ongoing consequences… It’s a shocking report. 

“This is the legacy. Unnecessary surgery being done, delayed spinal surgery, and implants going in that weren’t… you all agree that this is intolerable, unacceptabl;e, and the procedures have utterly failed, and then you come here to reassure us, and you’re not aware of it, so it’s difficult to get reassurance from you,” Connolly said. 

Brady, from the NTPF, told the committee that in the course of the review into insourcing, “nothing else” has been disclosed to her.