Latest news with #insourcing
Irish Times
14-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Beaumont billed NTPF for patients seen in routine clinics, doctors claim
Beaumont Hospital in Dublin billed the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) – the State-funded organisation which buys care for those on long waiting lists – for about 1,400 patients seen in routine public clinics, doctors have claimed. Concerns were raised by consultants in one speciality at Beaumont in a letter to the hospital's chairwoman, Pauline Philip, earlier this year. These concerns were the catalyst for the move by the NTPF to suspend all funding for an initiative aimed at tackling waiting lists in the north Dublin facility. The NTPF said on Wednesday it had paused funding for what is known as 'insourcing' at a public hospital, subsequently identified as Beaumont, on foot of 'potential financial irregularities'. Insourcing is where funding is provided to hospitals and staff to provide treatment to patients waiting longest for care. This is to take place outside of core working hours or at weekends. Hospitals and their staff receive additional payments for carrying out such work. Beaumont has received about €40 million in funding from the NTPF under various waiting list initiatives since 2020 – including €11.196 million in 2023, €8.6 million in 2024 and €1.185 million so far in 2025. READ MORE Before funding being suspended in April, about 18 people each week were receiving outpatient appointments and about 25 undergoing gastrointestinal scope procedures under the insourcing arrangements. The Irish Times understands that a number of consultants maintained in the letter to the chairwoman there had been systematic underreporting of activity in their speciality to the HSE's national programme for the particular discipline for several years. The consultants maintained that Beaumont had been claiming for new patient activity from the NTPF without their knowledge or consent. They maintained that this represented about 1,400 new patient appointments, going back to 2019. The consultants maintained that their routine clinical practice had been billed to the NTPF and they were not seeking personal financial reimbursement. Beaumont Hospital did not reply to questions submitted by The Irish Times on Friday. [ National Treatment Purchase Fund seeks assurances from all hospitals that rules of waiting-list schemes being followed Opens in new window ] It is understood that the consultants said in the letter to the hospital board that they had been unsuccessful in getting answers to several questions, including the exact amount that had been billed to and paid by the NTPF regarding activity in the speciality, for what this money had been used and whether similar issues had taken place elsewhere. The NTPF said on Wednesday it had alerted Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and the HSE about the issue at a public hospital in April. The Minister said the matter had been referred to internal auditors at the HSE. In a statement on Friday, the NTPF said it had 'raised its serious concerns with the chief executive and board of Beaumont Hospital and with the Department of Health and the HSE and is working with them in relation to the issue'. 'The matter has been referred to the HSE's internal audit team. The board and executive of the NTPF take their responsibilities very seriously and will take whatever actions are necessary to ensure our spend with public hospitals is fully protected for the benefit of public patients. Any proven misuse of public money by public institutions will be treated with the gravity it deserves.' It is understood the consultants maintained that the underreporting of activity by the hospital had portrayed them as being among the least productive such units in the country, when the opposite was the case. They expressed concern that as a result of how the unit was perceived in terms of productivity, it may have lost out on investment. Beaumont said on Wednesday that in March it had 'approached the NTPF of its own volition for the purpose of securing necessary clarifications in relation to activity conducted under the terms and conditions of an existing memorandum of understanding'.
Irish Times
11-06-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Second hospital has NTPF waiting list funding suspended over ‘potential financial irregularities'
The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has suspended funding for initiatives aimed at tackling waiting lists in another public hospital on foot of 'potential financial irregularities'. The NTPF said today that it had alerted Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and the HSE. The identity of the hospital concerned has not been disclosed. The NTPF pays for patients on waiting lists to receive treatment in both the public and private system. READ MORE In public hospitals it pays for patients who are waiting longest to receive treatment outside core working hours – at night-time or at weekends – with staff paid additional money to carry out work in their own time. This practice is known as 'insourcing'. Last week the NTPF said it had suspended funding for insourcing at facilities operated by the Children's Health Ireland (CHI). CHI runs the three paediatric hospitals in Dublin. In a statement today the organisation said it had alerted the Department of Health and HSE a number of weeks ago 'about potential financial irregularities in relation to NTPF-funded insourcing work at another public hospital'. It said it had suspended all insourcing work with that hospital since April 11th. It said it 'immediately informed the department and HSE of these concerns and is working with them in relation to the ongoing review. The matter has been referred to the HSE's Internal Audit team. The NTPF is restricted from making further comment at this stage.' Last week the NTPF said it had suspended funding following concerns raised in an internal CHI audit originally drawn up in 2022 but which was not published or shared elsewhere at the time. This internal report raised questioned over whether a series of five special clinics run by a consultant at CHI over a number of Saturdays for patients on waiting lists were needed and whether the children concerned could have been treated using capacity already in the public hospitals system. The consultant concerned had been paid €35,800 by the NTPF. The NTPF said on Wednesday that following a meeting of its board that funding is to be restored immediately for insourcing arrangements at CHI hospitals. It said this followed assurances provided by CHI in relation to its ongoing compliance with existing NTPF protocols and procedures. The NTPF said it 'will now increase governance and oversight across its insourcing work with public hospitals, who up to now have been responsible for this internal governance. The NTPF has notified the Department of Health and HSE of this decision.' Its chief executive Fiona Brady said: 'The board and executive of the NTPF take their responsibilities very seriously and will take whatever actions are necessary to ensure our spend with public hospitals is fully protected for the benefit of public patients. Any proven misuse of public money by public institutions will be treated with the gravity it deserves'.
Irish Times
06-06-2025
- 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
03-06-2025
- 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
