Staff retention and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the workforce will be a “significant focus” in the 2023 HSE national service plan, according to Dr Philip Crowley, National Director for Strategy and Research.
Dr Crowley, speaking in Dublin at the Environment, Health and Wellbeing Conference 2022 on 9 November, said there would also be funding for actions on climate change and the HSE’s new climate action strategy.
He told the Medical Independent (MI) that work on the climate action strategy would begin immediately upon publication and “there will be reviews of it [the strategy] … annually certainly”.
Speaking to conference attendees, Dr Crowley praised health staff during the pandemic who had displayed “amazing use of improvement skills to really improve care overnight, [to]change care overnight, we put in new models of care overnight”.
“Obviously this has impacted on our staff as well… and it’s a significant focus in our national service plan [2023], which we are finalising…. There will be focus there on staff retention, looking after our staff and trying to help them recover from the experience of managing the pandemic.”
In the question-and-answer session, he said that there will be “money put aside in that [national service plan] for climate action”.
The national service plan for 2023 will be submitted to the Minister for Health “for detailed consideration soon”, a HSE spokesperson told MI.
St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network (SLRON) has launched a new planning software system to treat certain brain cancers with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). The treatment is delivered at the SLRON
site on the grounds of Beaumont Hospital, the national referral centre for patients with malignant
and benign brain tumours, who require SRS. Pictured L-R are: Ms Christina Zacharaton, Medical Physicist; and Dr David Fitzpatrick, Consultant Radiation Oncologist, SLRON.
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