Commissioning Officer

Background

The NTPF is a corporate body with functions and responsibilities as set out under Statutory Instrument 179 - National Treatment Purchase Fund (Establishment) Order, 2004 and the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act (2009).

Its key functions are:

• Arranging for the provision of hospital treatment to classes of persons determined by the Minister.
• Collecting, collating and validating information on persons waiting for public hospital treatment.
• Agreeing pricing arrangements with private & voluntary nursing homes under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme.
• Furnishing advice to the Minister for Health on related issues.
• Performing any other function assigned by the Minister for Health, since July 2012 this includes responsibility for the publication of outpatient waiting lists.

In carrying out its functions, the NTPF works closely with the Department of Health, the HSE, acute public hospitals and private nursing homes across the health system.

The Role

The Commissioning Team’s function is to assist patients on public waiting lists to access healthcare faster through specific funding pathways. The role of the Commissioning Officer is to work within the Commissioning team to plan, organise and implement the patient treatment commissioning function for a group of health organisations, including all Public and Private Hospitals.

The key responsibilities are as follows:

• To actively develop and manage relationships with public and private hospitals.
• To ensure timely treatment of patients.
• To support the NTPF in treating higher volumes of patients.
• To mitigate financial risks.
• To report to management on the activities, outcomes and key issues arising from this role.
• To ensure that the process and output from NTPF’s role provides value for money for exchequer funding and that the activities are carried out with fairness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness.
• To understand the management of public waiting lists.
• To understand medical procedures and suitability of Public and Private Hospitals in treating such patients.
• To support the establishment of clinical pathways between Public and Private Hospitals.
• To develop and manage relationships between key internal and external stakeholders across the Irish healthcare system
• To attend to all administrative matters arising out of the Commissioning process including communicating with other health agencies and the Department of Health.
• To assign work and manage the workloads of their direct reports.
• To monitor compliance by treating hospitals to NTPF governance requirements.
• To carry out other duties and responsibilities as assigned.
• Any other duties deemed necessary by the Deputy Director of Commissioning and/or Director of Commissioning.

Note: The functions and responsibilities assigned to this position are based on the current requirements of the NTPF. These requirements may change in line with changes in the roles, objectives or business requirements of the organisation up to and including transfer to other business units.