The Health Service Executive (HSE) () is the publicly funded healthcare system in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, responsible for the provision of health and personal social services. It came into operation on 1 January 2005. The current

director-general A director general, general director or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''general directors'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'') is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer ...

is Bernard Gloster, who took up the new role on 6 March 2023, after Paul Reid stepped down.

History

The Health Service Executive (HSE) was established by the Health Act 2004 and came into official operation on 1 January 2005. It replaced the ten regional

Health Boards NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland ...

, the Eastern Regional Health Authority and a number of other different agencies and organisations. The

Minister for Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare spending and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental heal ...

retained overall responsibility for the Executive in

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

. The HSE adopted a regional structure (HSE Dublin Mid-Leinster, HSE Dublin North East, HSE South and HSE West). A new grouping of hospitals was announced by the Irish Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly TD, in May 2013, as part of a restructure of Irish public hospitals and a goal of delivering better patient care: *Dublin North East (subsequently renamed RCSI Hospitals) *Dublin Midlands (subsequently renamed Dublin Midlands Hospital Group) *Dublin East (subsequently renamed Ireland East Hospital Group) *South/South West (subsequently renamed South/Southwest Hospital Group) *West/North West (subsequently renamed Saolta University Health Care Group) *Mid West (subsequently renamed UL Hospitals Group) A new arrangement of 90 primary care networks was announced in October 2014.

2022 senior management departures

On 4 April 2022, it was announced that the chief operations officer of the HSE – Anne O'Connor – would be leaving the organisation in the summer to take up a new role as managing director of VHI Health and Wellbeing. On 27 June 2022, it was announced that the current director general of the HSE – Paul Reid – would be stepping down from his role in December to 'spend more time with family'. On 16 August 2022, it was announced that the director general – Paul Reid – would be leaving on 3 October 2022, two months earlier than planned. His role was temporarily filled by the current chief financial officer – Stephen Mulvany. On 16 December 2022, the HSE announced the appointment of Bernard Gloster, former CEO of TUSLA Child and Family Agency, as the new director general of the HSE.

Historic issues

The HSE is frequently portrayed by the Irish media as an inefficient, top-heavy and excessively bureaucratic organisation. The Irish health system has been involved in a number of serious health scandals, for example relating to cancer misdiagnoses in 2008. The HSE has also been the subject of criticism for cutbacks, service cancellations etc., but has indicated that it is making good progress in saving costs and achieving its required 'break-even' budget position for 2010. In the same month, the Irish Medical Organisation stated that patients awaiting a HSE medical card were waiting up to six months to receive their card, and that their health was being put at risk as they could not afford medicines that they would have otherwise obtained had they received their card. The HSE has since announced a new online system for medical card applications that will reduce turnaround time for routine applications to 15 days. In May 2011, key forensic evidence in up to 25 sexual-assault cases may be challenged in court because of a major administrative blunder by the HSE. The victims – some as young as 14 – were told by Gardaí about the incident, in which a nurse who carried out their forensic tests was unregistered. This could lead to the evidence being challenged. In May 2018, in the midst of the

CervicalCheck BowelScreen, BreastCheck and CervicalCheck are cancer screening programmes organised by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. BowelScreen BowelScreen is the national Cancer screening#Colon (colorectal) cancer, bowel ...

misdiagnoses controversy, Tony O'Brien announced his resignation as director-general of the HSE with effect from close of business on 11 May. An

Ombudsman An ombudsman ( , also ) is a government employee who investigates and tries to resolve complaints, usually through recommendations (binding or not) or mediation. They are usually appointed by the government or by parliament (often with a sign ...

report in October 2020 found that children with suspected disabilities are encountering delays of many years in having their needs properly assessed. The report said that this is 'a serious and ongoing violation of their rights'.

2021 cyberattack

On 14 May 2021, the HSE suffered a major

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware that Encryption, encrypts the victim's personal data until a ransom is paid. Difficult-to-trace Digital currency, digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies are com ...

cyberattack A cyberattack (or cyber attack) occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content. The rising dependence on increasingly complex and inte ...

which caused all of its

IT systems Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

nationwide to be shut down. It was the most significant cybercrime attack on an Irish state agency and the largest known attack against a health service computer system. Some reports have traced the origin of the attack back to a hacking group the Russian Federation. The ransomware cyber attack, which occurred during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, had a significant impact on hospital appointments across the country, with many appointments cancelled including all outpatient and radiology services. A report into the attack showed that the HSE used unsecured systems and the hackers got in eight weeks earlier than thought.

References

External links