The Health and Social Care Professions Alliance (HSCPA) is an alliance of the professional bodies of those professions regulated or due to be regulated by CORU. Current membership consists of representatives of occupational therapists, orthoptists, optometrists, social care, social workers, speech and language therapists, radiographers & radiation therapists, dietitians, clinical biochemists, physiotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, psychotherapists, chiropodists & podiatrists, play therapists, audiologists, clinical measurement physiologists, phlebotomists and is growing. The HSCPA encompasses 24 professions and has a collective membership of 40,000. We are not a union; we work together on areas of common interest for HSCPs and to advance professional issues. Health and Social Care professionals account for more than 25% of the clinical and social care work force of the HSE.
We welcome the fact that the embargo on recruiting staff within the HSE has been lifted after 10 months and we understand that employment control is essential when it comes to managing a resource constrained health service, however we feel that it is important to highlight the impact of the recruitment moratorium on Health and Social Care Professionals ( HSCP) and the patients and clients they care for.
We conducted a survey of over 300 HSCP managers in the health service. The majority of respondents worked in the Acute hospital setting with high numbers also working in Primary and Community care . The survey revealed that
Two thirds of managers advised that they had unfilled posts in their departments.
55% of HSCP staff work part time hours which leaves them vulnerable when it comes to replacement.
86% of maternity and parental leaves were not filled .Considering 82% of HSCPs are female, they were disproportionately affected by the moratorium. None of the 17 HSCP’s surveyed have had maternity leave cover in the previous 6 months. Some areas are more effected by this than other, Community , Primary care and Mental Health in particular.
83% of managers surveyed have waiting lists for their services with 4 out of 17 HSCP services reporting a waiting list of well over 6 months, including one counselling/psychotherapy service which has a waiting list of over 12 months. There were also severe delays in accessing clinical measurement tests and interventions. This leads to lack of access to care for patients, delaying diagnosis and intervention
Service delivery and development. The majority of departments have managers but 13 % have no managers and 20% have a manager post that is vacant which make it challenging in terms of clinical leadership and training and recruitment and retention of staff. A quarter have clinical specialist vacancies.
Capacity of many of the HSCP services in mental health (in particular occupational therapy and dietetics) are substantially reduced, e.g. one dietetic service reported a vacancy rate of 80%.
All HSCP’s surveyed either agree or strongly agree with the statement that as a result of the embargo, the HSCPs are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and burnout.
