Minister confirms reduction in NTPF funding next year as insourcing practices are set to be wound down
Beaumont Hospital billed the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) €25,000 in error for insourcing services, an Oireachtas Committee has heard.
The hospital’s chief executive Anne Coyle revealed that the discrepancy related to rheumatology treatment that had already been funded through the HSE. The money has since been returned to the NTPF.
“In March 2025, the hospital made a self-disclosure to the NTPF regarding the possibility of non-compliance with NTPF Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) within Rheumatology outpatient clinics,” Ms Coyle told the Public Accounts Committee.
“The NTPF subsequently paused the funding of all NTPF initiatives provided by the hospital pending review.
“HSE Internal Audit undertook a fact-finding review which is now complete. Included in the findings was that Beaumont Hospital billed NTPF €25,000 in error for Rheumatology waiting list services which had already been funded by the Health Service Executive. This amount has been reimbursed to the NTPF.”
She confirmed that no rheumatology consultant in the hospital received any additional income or reimbursement related to treatment clinics billed by the NTPF.
Beaumont suspended its insourcing activities in April after the NTPF found ‘potential financial irregularities’.
NTPF chief executive Fiona Brady said that the organisation continues to work with the hospital on improving patient waiting times.
“While insourcing has been temporarily paused, the NTPF remains actively engaged with Beaumont Hospital to provide outsourcing solutions for long-waiting patients,” she said.
“In addition, the NTPF undertakes administrative validation of waiting lists to ensure their accuracy, and Beaumont Hospital remains fully engaged in the NTPF audit process.”
She told the committee that insourcing – where funding is provided directly to public hospitals to deliver additional treatment or outpatient consultations beyond their core HSE-funded activity – currently represents 30 per cent of its commissioning expenditure.
The remainder goes to outsourcing activity, where the NTPF procures treatment and care for public patients in private hospitals.
In the summer HSE CEO Bernard Gloster said that he wants to see the practice of insourcing stop by next June and has made that recommendation to the Minister for Health.
In a post-Budget briefing this week, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill confirmed that funding for the NTPF next year has been cut in anticipation of this reduced activity. She said: “If I left the same amount of money in the Budget, how would things be different?”.
