Private firm to run UHG will be unveiled this week

Date Published: 24-Oct-2011

By Dara Bradley

The identity of the private company that will introduce new management at University Hospital Galway (UHG) and Mid-Western Regional Hospital Limerick is set to be unveiled this week.

Minister for Health, James Reilly, said five companies, one Irish and four UK, are in the running for the tender for the running of the two hospitals.

The tender process, run by Health Service Executive (HSE) West, finished last Friday and the successful private company will be revealed this week, said Minister Reilly.

The Minister stressed that although he was bringing in managerial expertise from the private sector to run UHG – in the form of a new Chief Executive Officer – there is “no question of privatising the health service”.

He said a Chief Operating Officer and a Chief Financial Officer had been recruited at UHG in the Summer but the HSE West was unable to recruit a CEO through the normal channels, which is why it had been put out to tender.

The successful company that wins the tender will provide a CEO for UHG as well as three senior management positions for Limerick. The “external managerial expertise”, said Minister Reilly, will have three functions: manage the hospital, ‘grow’ new management underneath them, and the ‘up-skilling’ of existing management in UHG and Limerick, as well as other smaller hospitals across the HSE West area. The contract is for 18 months, he said.

Galway West TD Derek Nolan, said in order to ensure that UHG has a CEO who is capable and experienced, the position will be filled by an external person, who works for a private company.

But, he stressed, the idea that this equates to the management function in the city hospital being privatised is “inaccurate and misleading”.

The Labour Party TD, in a statement, said: “There will be no new layer of management and the CEO will fulfil and execute his duties on the same guidelines as if the position had been filled in the normal process.

"There will be no army of private managers descending on UHG, nor will there be a new elite in charge. The CEO will report only to the HSE and work with existing staff and within the existing corporate governance framework. It is believed that the reputational damage to UHG, as the worst run hospital in the country, has deterred potential applicants for the job."

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel