Consultant received nearly €70,000 in overtime pay, audit shows

A medical consultant received nearly €70,000 in additional overtime payments for work carried out for another part of the HSE because it was not possible to find someone else to cover his position in his own hospital.

A HSE internal audit found that the consultant, who worked in emergency medicine in Cork University Hospital (CUH), was in receipt of an additional flat hours payment under the overtime pay code.

The report says management at the hospital maintained this payment related to an arrangement which commenced in January 2014 between CUH and another HSE service provider which involved the consultant being released for two days – 15.6 hours – per week.

It says this arrangement was to apply for a year with an option to extend it further.

“A review of payroll history indicated that the consultant is paid for 15.6 hours per week in addition to his normal full-time commitment with CUH of 39 hours per week, representing a total working week of 54.60 hours,” the report says.

“Whilst a funding transfer of €68,474 was made in January 2014 to CUH, these arrangement conflict with the terms of both the consultant contract and the terms of the European Working Time directive.”

The audit says that management at CUH maintained that the consultant in emergency medicine had been recruited by another service in the HSE to work two days per week.

Original plan

It says the original plan was that he would be released from his commitments at CUH for this period and another doctor would be recruited to backfill or cover the two days in question.

“To date it has not been possible to recruit a consultant in emergency medicine to cover the two days and the CUH emergency department workload is such that we are not in a position to forgo the two days,” it says.

“We continue our efforts to recruit a consultant to backfill the post and in the interim are looking at options to ensure that the consultant does not exceed the terms of the European Working Time Directive or the Working Time Act.”

Allowances

The HSE internal audit also raises queries regarding the payment of allowances on top of salary to a number of senior nurses in Cork and Kerry.

The audit says that under a Department of Health circular, unit/location allowances and higher degree/specialist qualification allowances should only be paid to nurses up to the level of clinical nurse management II.

It says a sample of payments to staff in HSE South had found that two directors of nursing – more senior posts – had been receiving the unit allowance in March of last year.

The audit also says three members of nursing staff who had been promoted to positions above clinical nurse manager II had continued to be in receipt of the specialist qualification allowance.