By Lloyd Mudiwa.
HSE staff, particularly clinical directors, have not complied with an extended controls assurance process introduced last year, thereby denying the Board of the HSE a comprehensive assurance process of its financial and risk management controls.
IMT (28/06/13) exposed a series of significant breaches last year of the Executive’s own internal financial control system, including the underpayment of PRSI and failure to report the awarding of a significant number of contracts, each worth at least ?25,000, without a competitive process.
It has since emerged that the Finance Directorate carried out a formal Review of the System of Internal Control in the Executive completed in 2012, the results of which have informed a Statement on Internal Financial Control in the HSE by Board Chairman Dr Ambrose McLoughlin, with input from the Quality and Patient Safety Directorate.
The scope of the review was extended in 2011 and again in 2012 to include clinical management and directors for the first time, requiring them to complete Controls Assurance Statements (CAS). Dr McLoughlin, who referred to the HSE as a relatively immature organisation, commented: “Full compliance by staff with the extended controls assurance process in 2012 has not been achieved.”
Of the 1,178 staff on the Integrated Services Directorate’s Register, 85 per cent had signed as of March 2012, compared to 69 per cent compliance in March 2011.
The percentage rate for overall compliance with the process by the clinical managers was a mere 6 per cent, he revealed. “Steps are being taken by management to address this unacceptable level of compliance.”
lloyd.mudiwa@imt.ie