Parliamentary questions

1234. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether an agency or locum healthcare worker removed from one HSE-funded site due to performance, conduct, safeguarding, or patient safety concerns can subsequently be redeployed elsewhere within the HSE system without a central restriction mechanism. [39100/26]

1235. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health how staffing agencies supplying workers to HSE-funded services are performance monitored nationally, including whether complaints, patient safety incidents, missed shifts, cancelled placements, credentialing failures, Garda vetting issues, contract breaches, or supplier sanctions are centrally tracked and performance scored. [39101/26]

1236. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains a national supplier performance framework for healthcare staffing agencies and whether any suppliers have, within the past five years, been suspended, sanctioned, financially penalised, removed from frameworks, or subject to corrective action requirements. [39102/26]

1237. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health to provide, for each of the past five years, the total expenditure on agency and locum staffing within public mental health services, broken down by approved mental health centre, CAMHS, community mental health team, staff category, and Health Region. [39103/26]

1238. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether continuity of clinician care within public mental health services is measured as a service quality or patient safety indicator and, if not, whether the absence of such measurement has been identified as a governance or clinical risk. [39104/26]

1239. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the number of unfilled permanent consultant psychiatry posts currently vacant within the public health system, broken down by specialty, service type, and Health Region. [39105/26]

1240. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the Department or HSE has carried out any assessment of the relationship between consultant psychiatry vacancies, agency dependency, clinician turnover, and continuity of patient care within public mental health services. [39106/26]

1241. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Health the progress on the public-only consultant contract; the number of consultants now signed to the system; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39125/26]

1242. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any expenditure threshold exists within the treatment abroad scheme above which additional managerial, financial, legal or executive approval is required prior to authorisation of treatment abroad. [39141/26]

1243. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal distinction between clinical eligibility approval and financial expenditure approval; and if so, to provide details of the separate approval pathway. [39136/26]

1244. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the grade, title or officeholder responsible for final authorisation of individual treatment abroad scheme applications involving projected expenditure above €100,000. [39137/26]

1245. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit, value-for-money review or external governance review of high-cost treatment abroad scheme approvals has been conducted since 2020; and if so, to provide details and findings. [39138/26]

1246. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains a register of the highest-cost treatments approved annually under the treatment abroad scheme and the aggregate annual expenditure associated with such approvals. [39139/26]

1247. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department receives routine reporting on high-cost approvals under the treatment abroad scheme, including cumulative expenditure, approval volumes and exceptional-case expenditure. [39140/26]

1248. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the 2022 Comptroller and Auditor General audit referenced in relation to the treatment abroad scheme constituted a full scheme audit or a sample-based review; and if she will provide the scope, methodology and findings of same. [39135/26]

1249. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit reports, governance reviews, expenditure-control assessments, or value-for-money evaluations relating to the treatment abroad scheme have been conducted by the HSE, Department of Health, Internal Audit, National Financial Regulations Office, or any external body since 2020; and if she will provide details of same. [3…

1250. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme appears on any HSE or Departmental corporate risk register, strategic risk register, or internal assurance framework; and if so, the risks identified. [39143/26]

1251. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal benchmarking process comparing the cost of equivalent procedures across jurisdictions prior to authorisation approval. [39144/26]

1252. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any audit, review, or expenditure-control process has examined referral concentration patterns, repeat provider usage, or high-cost treatment clustering under the treatment abroad scheme since 2020. [39145/26]

1253. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any fraud-prevention, duplicate-payment detection, or abnormal expenditure-monitoring system is operated in respect of the treatment abroad scheme. [39146/26]

1254. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal threshold, trigger mechanism or anomaly detection system exists within the treatment abroad scheme to identify unusually high-cost invoices received from healthcare providers in other EU/EEA states. [39149/26]

1255. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE has ever formally disputed, queried, challenged or sought clarification regarding the cost of treatment invoiced under the treatment abroad scheme by another EU/EEA healthcare system; and if she will provide the number of such cases since 2020. [39150/26]

1256. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains any comparative database or benchmarking framework examining the average cost of equivalent procedures between different EU/EEA healthcare systems under the treatment abroad scheme. [39151/26]

1257. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any value-for-money analysis has been conducted comparing expenditure under the treatment abroad scheme against the cost of developing equivalent treatment capacity domestically. [39153/26]

1258. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal financial escalation process exists within the HSE or Department of Health for treatment abroad scheme cases exceeding specified expenditure levels; and if she will provide details of the approval pathway applying in such cases. [39154/26]