Drumm to step down in 2010

HSE CEO Prof Brendan Drumm has confirmed he will not seek to have his contract renewed when his five-year term comes to an end next year.

Speaking on RTE Radio's This Week programme yesterday, Prof Drumm said he will not be seeking a renewal of my contract next year.

"But that doesn’t say that over the next I don’t have a huge job to do,” Prof Drumm said.

Prof Drumm added that he was afraid of staying in the post for too long saying “ten years for me is actually too long for somebody to keep inspiring the system”.

He warned that the HSE would have to shed 6,000 jobs otherwise major spending reductions, including on pay, would have to be made.

Prof Drumm said the HSE would have to look at the fact that it pays over €1 billion in overtime because it runs a 24/7 system on a nine to five payroll. He said the HSE needed to reconfigure how staff worked.

The HSE is faced with having to make €800 million in savings next year.

Prof Drumm's five-year contract term ends next August.

The confirmation that he will not stay on past August 2010 has not come as a surprise, and he had hinted as much in the recent past.

In an interview with irishhealth.com late last year, Prof Drumm referred to the criticism he has often had to endure while running an organisation the size of the HSE.

He said that while he could deal such comments, which could be quite personalised, "it can have a huge effect on those who are close to you"

Prof Drumm said for him to decide to go beyond a five-year term it  "would require an awful lot more people in my life to sit down and have some serious disussions", but at that stage he said he had not had those discussions.

He said he was committed to a five-year programme of work.

View the irishhealth.com interview with Prof Drumm here

[Posted: Mon 07/09/2009]