HSE failure: our hopsitals are now playing "pass the patient" to save budget

[cyberianpan]

I've said before the finance function of the HSE is particularly incompetent. Here's further proof:

Irish hospitals are now trying to play "pass the patient" to avoid paying for the cost of treating them:

Irish Times : Cost plan for hospital to impact on patients

A DUBLIN hospital facing a shortfall of more than €17 million this year has told the Health Service Executive (HSE) it can no longer accept patients referred to it from outside its catchment area if they are coming from regions that already have “appropriate” services.

St Vincent’s hospital, which has taken the step in a bid to cut costs, has indicated this will affect a wide range of patients, including those requiring pain management and cystic fibrosis sufferers.
...
A spokesman for the hospital said yesterday some HSE hospitals which did not have sufficient resources were referring patients onwards to St Vincent’s in the hope that it would solve their “budgetary issues”. St Vincent’s was saying this had to stop, and it could not continue to provide services for the HSE without receiving the funding to do so.

This indicates the special lunacy of the HSE... the hospitals underneath it are trying to pass around patients. So obviously the budget apportioned to the hospital doesn't seem related to the care or the patients at all - it is just a pie-in-the-sky figure.

For a budget to be anyway plausible it needs to have a low, granular level of detail -
e.g. "Here is €X.Xm for treating 321 cystic fibrosis sufferers"....

Anyway this is just another example of the HSE failing - this type of nonsense should have been sorted out a long time ago. I wonder will we have to wait for a new government now ... and can the patients afford to wait ?

cYp

[spidermom]

Harneys cancer strategy could fall on this too.


The breast unit from Tallaght is to transfer to Vincents.....I see Vincents are saying that it will not accept patients from outside its catchment area IF these patients can access services locally...The breast unit in Tallaght passed the HIQA assessment with flying colours in 2008 and the move has been held up because of the numbers attending Tallaght!

[cyberianpan]

Indeed !

But here's another example of why the HSE budgetary system is a nonsense:

There's a hospital in the Midlands which has built up a solid reputation for vascular surgery - they are really good - if you've varicose veins - they are the place to go to.

The crazy HSE budgetary system is actually punishing this excellence - because that hospital now is trying to dodge patients ...

Budgetary systems are essential - but they need to be well designed and aligned to the benefits (in Health that is clinical outcome & wellbeing) - HSE budgets are pie in the sky and aligned to how much money is available - in good times we had incredible waste - now in bad times we'll kill a few patients.


cYp

[DCon]

Maybe passing patients keeps the administrators with work to do. Surely they cannot spend all day having cigarette and tea breaks.

[sparkey321]

Money follows patient.

pay per procedure carried out. Its that simple.