Shockingly basic Children’s Hospital HR and IT failures drive concerns on move and opening date

• Medical Council Report paints picture of basic admin errors and IT risk.
• Serious questions on the moving of almost 4,000 staff and the dramatic move from paper to electronic health records.
• Serious questions from recruitment at CHI.
• Does Minister have confidence in CHI’s capacity to relocate?

Labour’s health spokesperson Marie Sherlock TD said the latest Medical Council report raises serious concerns about the capacity of Children’s Health Ireland to open the long-awaited new Children’s Hospital. This report raises major issues with culture, patient safety, and care.

With a list of outstanding issues and unanswered questions regarding recruitment and retaining of staff to ensure the hospital can open, Deputy Sherlock has called on the Minister of Health to make a statement on the long-awaited Children’s Hospital and make it clear that she has confidence that CHI can successfully relocate this year.

Deputy Sherlock said:

“The litany of failures across the development and delivery of the much-needed Children’s Hospital has been well aired, but the latest inspection report from the Medical Council is deeply alarming. That basic HR, IT and administration errors could be happening at this stage open serious questions about the ability of CHI to merge and move to the new site.

“The fact that this is coming months after findings from a 2021/2022 internal HR report of one CHI department were released which highlighted issues with workplace culture, HR issues, and the potential impact on patient safety is concerning. We simply cannot have a repeat of the past – we know the significant impact that this can have on children and their families.

“The Minister for Health must report to the Dáil and the Health Committee that the National Children’s Hospital Transition Team have the resources they need, including staffing, and to confirm that she has confidence in the existing hospital system’s capacity to relocate to the new CHI.

“Within the next 12 months, over 4,000 staff will need to be moved to the new building, and this move will be made even more challenging as teams change from a paper to a fully digital record hospital system.

“Some of these issues are basic and fundamental to the operation of CHI. It is deeply concerning that there are failures and delays in issuing contracts, significantly delayed salary payment, and concerningly for patient care, issues with appropriate leave cover, ineffective ICT systems and incorrect rota staffing lists. This could have a significant impact on patient care and for the wellbeing and retention of staff.

“In the new National Children’s Hospital, we know there is an excellent transition team in place preparing for the move, but there are serious concerns about the merge and move if the basic systems aren’t even properly functioning.

“For example, we know that the National Children’s Hospital will face a staffing crisis before it even opens. An October 2023 report sent to the HSE by CHI warned that it was 382.8 whole-time equivalent staff short to run the new hospital smoothly.

“Therefore, we need to see an update on the recruitment drive to ensure the new hospital is staffed safely, that staff are confident they are working in a safe environment and that parents are assured that their child will be receiving the best levels of care possible.

“The Minister for Health must come forward and be transparent about what the National Children’s Health transition team are being provided with in terms of staffing. Does the Minister have confidence at this stage in the existing hospital system’s capacity to relocate?”