Cork University Hospital staff question PwC role after €608k paid to management consultants
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Frontline staff at Cork University Hospital have questioned why PwC consultants have earned fees which could run to more than €1m at a time when services are stretched to breaking point.
The understands the consultant team, believed to include 23 staff from PwC, has been paid more than €1m since October last year to work on a "transformation and improvement programme" for CUH and associated hospitals — Mallow, Bantry, St Finbarr’s Rehabilitation Unit, and CUH Wilton — known collectively as the CUH Group.
Data released by CUH chief executive David Donegan shows the total cost of the programme for October-December last year alone came to €608,252. It cost €61,500 in October, but the bill increased rapidly to €266,779 in November, and in December the programme cost €279,973.
During those months and throughout this year, patients attending CUH faced some of the longest waits for a hospital bed in the country. The cost of the services so far this year has yet to be released.
In March, some six months after PwC began work, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation warned overcrowding was “out of control” in Cork, with one day seeing 74 patients waiting for a bed.
Last month, it emerged that visitors and patients had be met in the car park of CUH to be told of delays in getting spaces due to the sheer number of patients using the hospital. The emergency department saw more than 250 people in just one day in April.
The issue has caused such concern internally that the INMO wrote to HSE national management asking for the arrangement to be stood down.
A CUH spokesman defended the arrangement, saying: "Support of management consultants is currently being provided to CUH to assist with a transformation and improvements programme aimed at providing better services for patients."
He added it was “common practice” for the HSE to work with management consultants through a national framework panel.
Labour TD Seán Sherlock said in relation to the costs from October-December for which figures have been provided: “It’s hard to square off where €600,000 has been spent when people are on trolleys every day.
Mr Donegan said the ‘programme management office’ was set up following concerns raised by HSE staff around governance and external independent reviews.
The cost of €608,000 does not include monies paid to PwC by the larger South/SouthWest Hospital Group of which CUH is also part, he stated in a letter to Mr Sherlock.
However, the TD called for more public scrutiny of HSE funding being paid to external consultancy services generally.
“We know that waiting lists are getting longer for acute and elective medical procedures,” he said.
“It’s very hard to understand why we have a HSE funded by the taxpayer when more and more management services and processes are tendered out to the private sector with little or no evidence of impact.
“The country seems to be run by management consultants proffering advice at great cost to the taxpayer, and one wonders if the taxpayer is actually benefitting through better services."