Two separate parts of the HSE, which operated different financial systems, paid a supplier more than €700,000 for the same invoice, new accounts published by the health service show.
In a note on the accounts, the State’s financial watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General maintains the HSE has not recovered the overpayment.
The accounts also show that what is described as an “asset”, constructed in 2009 at a cost of €1.4 million but never used for its intended purposes, had been written off last year. The accounts say the cost of the write off was €800,000.
The annual report and accounts for 2024 also reveal that about €4 million in payments due from the health insurance industry in respect of subscribers treated in HSE facilities was written off due to delays in submitting bills.
The report says the risk of bad debts “is most relevant” in relation to claims from one health insurer, which is not identified.
The report says the HSE entered into a memorandum of agreement with a health insurer in 2016 in relation to accommodation charges for patients with private health insurance.
“The arrangement entitles the Executive to be paid 70 per cent of its charges, on account, pending the submission and validation within a 12-month period of a fully completed claim. Failure to meet the submission deadline results in forfeiture of the full value (100 per cent) of the claim.”
“For a sample of eight hospitals examined on audit, it was noted that losses incurred in 2024 as a result of delays in submitting completed claims amounted to €2 million. The Executive estimates that losses for the remaining hospitals that it manages were €2.1 million, resulting in an estimated total loss of €4.1 million for 2024.
The annual report also shows that one HSE employee received just under €700,000 in total payments including basic pay, allowances, overtime and weekend, night duty and on-call fees last year.
A total of 10 HSE staff were paid in excess of €500,000 overall.
The report also reveals that personal protective equipment worth about €22 million and vaccines to the value of about €11 million had been written off because they had become obsolete.
The report shows that the supplier who was paid twice had entered into an arrangement with the HSE in 2020 for the supply of diagnostic devices, ancillary supplies and equipment as well as information technology and support. It says the overall system “was considered to be of significant value in monitoring the condition of Covid-19 patients in hospital settings”.
Ultimately the supplier received about €15 million up to 2024. However, the report raises concerns about procurement arrangements and controls over how the money was being spent.
“The initial arrangement with the supplier was put in place without a competitive procurement process on the basis of emergency circumstances, as provided for in procurement legislation. However, the arrangement continued each year until 2024 without being regularised through an appropriate competitive tendering process. Accordingly, it represented significant non-compliant procurement over a number of years.
“The payments to the supplier over the period 2020 to 2024 amounted to a total of €15 million. However, the terms of the procurement arrangement were not set out in a formal written contract with the supplier. In practice, the arrangement was that a number of units of the Health Service Executive were invoiced from time to time by the supplier for devices and ancillary items. This included prepayment each quarter from mid-2022 to mid-2024 for supply of a standard number of devices, to be drawn down as required by individual hospitals.
“The Executive did not maintain central records of the total number of units paid for. The number of devices received by hospitals, or paid for and remaining undrawn from the supplier is not known. The Executive also does not know how many of the items paid for were actually used in its hospitals.
“The Executive discloses that as part of efforts to improve control over the receipt of goods, it identified that one invoice from the supplier to the value of €723,000 had been paid twice, in two different areas of the Executive operating at the time (in December 2021) on separate financial systems. The Executive has not recovered the overpayment from the supplier.”
