The business case for the proposed HSE’s single financial system will need to be amended as a result of the Government’s plans to establish new healthcare organisational structures and abolish the Executive, IMN has learned.
The HSE submitted the existing business case for a National Financial and Procurement System to the Department of Health in June 2010 in order to rectify deficiencies in its accounting and procurement practice. “We are going to have to look at our business case in terms of saying what we are really looking at is not a solution for the HSE but for the new health environment,” HSE National Director for Finance Mr Liam Woods told IMN. “However, the new environment will have to become clear before we know what type of organisations we are going to have to implement for.”
Mr Woods said that while the basic principles of the business case will apply, amendments are required to deal with structural changes such as the separation of responsibility for children from the HSE; the creation of a new primary care structure; and a care-based organisation, which is not yet defined in terms of composition, but may oversee areas such as disability and older persons. “The critical thing is that it will introduce common process run most efficiently,” Mr Woods said. “The alternative would be that you would have multiple administrations building up around these new entities which would be a duplication of cost and we are not in the process of doing that.
“The health system is still going to be paying people and paying suppliers indefinitely and rather than having a multiplicity of new entities doing their own thing, the notion of an underlying system that is capable of doing all of that is still rock solid.” The HSE is now engaged in deliberations around the business case, as the peer review process, in line with Department of Finance protocols, has now commenced. Mr Woods said it could take a number of months for the process to conclude. Current HSE financial systems were described in the Executive’s 2010 Annual Report, which was recently published, as “unfit for purpose” as they are designed to produce accrual accounts rather than a vote-based appropriation account.
Also, the systems are not able to provide the level of analysis of vote expenditure, which is required by Government accounting rules. It is estimated that the introduction of a new central system would save the HSE €100 million annually.
