Senior hospital managers in the HSE West from now on must declare register of interests to guard against potential conflict in the awarding of health contracts.
The new measure is one of six recommendations the HSE insists has been implemented following a controversial case in which public contracts worth almost €400,000 were awarded at University Hospital Galway without a competitive public procurement process.
The recommendations were made on foot of an internal audit carried out by the HSE in relation to the awarding of a contract to Northgate, a private company, to provide services to the Saolta group of hospitals in the west and north west.
The audit was ordered after it emerged Bill Maher, the former chief executive of Saolta, had a business relationship as a consultant with Northgate, prior to working with the HSE.
Mr Maher’s successor, Maurice Power, was the chief financial officer of the hospital group when the services were procured.
City Councillor Pádraig Conneely, who consistently raised the spectre of a conflict of interest in this case, has said he has been vindicated by the internal audit.
Speaking at the latest HSE West Regional Health Forum, Cllr Conneely said management at the hospital are “not clean on this”.
He said no procurement took place and the internal audit was “damning” of the practices in place.
Cllr Conneely said he was “fobbed off” when he first raised this as a matter of public interest but he has now been “totally vindicated”.
He criticised the HSE for not releasing the report to members, and claimed it was an insult that they had to access the report through Freedom of Information.
Cllr Conneely pointed out at the meeting that Tony Canavan, Chief Officer of Saolta Hospital Group, was not implicated in the report but others had questions to answer.
In response, Ann Cosgrove, Chief Operating Officer with Saolta Hospital Group, said she could not comment on individuals.
She said the internal audit was available through FOI and would not be released outside of that.
Ms Cosgrove said the recommendations of the audit, which were published at the meeting, have been fully implemented.
One recommendation – compiling a register of interests for all senior management of hospitals – will “help to avoid situations where a potential conflict of interest may arise with a supplier to a hospital group”.
“Consultation with HSE Procurement should take place prior to hospital groups entering into any significant purchase commitments,” the report recommended.
Another of the six recommendations said: “All contracts in excess of €25,000 which have been awarded without a competitive process must be disclosed to the Comptroller and Auditor General”.
It also said that “HSE terms and conditions should always be used when entering into contracts with suppliers”. It added: “The current arrangement involving the secondment of IT project management services from Northgate to Saolta should be concluded and replaced by the new procurement framework agreement once this becomes available”.