Hospitals fail to hire doctors on short-term contracts
Efforts to hire doctors on short-term contracts, in a bid to reduce the HSE’s massive agency costs, have failed.
Hospitals confirmed they were continuing to use agency staff and locums, or temporary doctors, as they have been unable to get doctors to accept short-term contracts that pay less.
The news will come as a blow to Minister for Health Leo Varadkar, who was a keen proponent of the plan.
The dependence on agency staff has contributed to the overrun in health spending and the failure to reach savings targets under the Haddington Road ...
