The Health Service Executive will have to suppress a senior management post to compensate for the establishment of a new role in the health service for the former chief executive of Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), the Department of Public Expenditure (DPER) has directed.
Correspondence DPER sent to the Department of Health also indicated the appointment of Eilísh Hardiman as strategic programme director in April followed a “mediation process”. It maintained there were “potential ongoing legal and operational risks associated with this case”.
The board of CHI in April said Ms Hardiman was being reassigned to the strategic role following 10 years as its chief executive. It said it was Government practice to appoint State-body chief executives on five-year contracts, with no more than two contracted periods.
DPER gave approval for the strategic programme director position on foot of a business case drawn up by the Department of Health “which sets out the importance of the proposed role and the necessity of resolving the current issues in Children’s Health Ireland”. However, it set down a number of conditions.
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These included that the creation of the role would be “facilitated by the suppression of an equivalent (national director) post in the HSE”. It said the post to be suppressed would have to be identified and communicated to DPER before a new chief executive of CHI was appointed.
“The creation of this role will not be used as a justification for additional overall staffing requirements for Children’s Health Ireland, particularly given the need to control overall health sector employment numbers,” it said.
DPER also said the salary of the next CHI chief executive would remain at the existing level. Having regard to the potential ongoing legal and operational risks associated with the case, it said the Department of Health should be satisfied that this “is the most economic and cost-effective outcome”.
It also said the Department of Health and CHI board “should be satisfied that this outcome is a full and final settlement of the associated mediation process”.
The board’s internal bulletin to staff at the group, which runs the paediatric hospitals at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght, did not mention of any mediation process or potential legal risks arising from the establishment of the strategic programme director post.
However, The Irish Times reported in June that CHI’s board had wanted to reappoint Ms Hardiman for another term but this was rejected by the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, citing the policy on chief executives serving no more than two five-year terms.
In a letter to the Minister on December 24th last, board chairman Dr Jim Browne said CHI was “surprised and disappointed” that its proposal to reappoint Ms Hardiman had not been accepted. He argued it would take months to recruit a new chief executive and that the board believed stability and continuity of leadership were needed as the organisation prepared for the move to the new national children’s hospital.
However, Mr Donnelly told Dr Browne in a letter in May that he was concerned at references to risks the board feared could be posed by a change in chief executive.
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