Inmo Pre-Budget Submission Seeks Funding For Implementation Of Slaintecare Report

The Pre-Budget Submission (click here) from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), submitted to the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform, has called for the government, in the forthcoming budget, to commence funding the change programme recommended in the recently published Slaintecare Report.

This report, which calls for a ten-year transformational change programme, leading to a single tiered, universally accessible public health service, clearly specified the need for additional resources. The forthcoming budget is the first opportunity, for this government, to tangibly demonstrate its commitment to implementing the report’s recommendations.

The submission also calls for measures, which require financial resources, to increase the capacity of the health service, in terms of staffing and beds. This is necessary to allow the service begin to deal with the continuing record levels of hospital overcrowding and growing waiting lists for treatment and procedures.

Specifically, the INMO submission seeks a number of initiatives including:

• a 25% increase, over five years, in the nursing/midwifery workforce:

• currently, despite efforts to recruit/retain, the nursing/midwifery workforce remains less than 35,000 which is over 3,000 less than it was in 2008;

• increased acute bed capacity, which currently stands at 2.8 beds per 1,000 population, to the OECD average of 4.8 beds per 1,000; and

• increased investment in the provision of publicly funded care of the older persons services which have, in recent years, being increasingly outsourced to the

private sector which is not meeting capacity requirements.

The submission also calls for the government, in the forthcoming budget, to allocate specific funds to ensure that all of the pay and staffing recommendations, which are expected from the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC) in the second quarter of 2018, to address the nursing/midwifery recruitment/retention crisis can be implemented immediately. The government must demonstrate, in this budget, that it understands that it must provide, in terms of pay, additional resources so that Ireland can recruit, and retain, sufficient numbers of nurses/midwives to adequately staff existing services and provide the additional services necessary to meet demand.

Speaking today INMO General Secretary Designate, Phil Ni Sheaghdha said:

“Our pre-budget submission clearly identifies a number of steps that are required to be taken, by this government, to begin the process of transforming, while growing, our public health service. This is necessary to meet demand and bring an end to the inequity that exists within our current two-tiered health service.

This budget provides the first opportunity, since the publication of the Slaintecare Report, for the government to demonstrate its acceptance of this critically important report. The budget provides an opportunity for the government to begin allocating resources required to make our public health service equitable, accessible and truly world class.”

Ms. Ni Sheaghdha continued:

“The first step to expanding our public health service is to address the nursing/midwifery crisis, with regard to recruitment/retention which continues unabated. Therefore, the government must allocate funds to introduce improved pay and conditions to reflect the competitive international labour market for Irish nurses and midwives at this time.

Our submission also calls for a range of other initiatives in such areas as health promotion/awareness and housing as the current problems, in these areas put further pressure upon our already overstretched public health service.

The INMO looks forward to engaging with relevant Ministers on this submission in the context of the forthcoming budget statement from government.”