“MINISTER FOR HEALTH Simon Harris has said that in his (March 2017) plan for the health service the HSE will eventually be dismantled and replaced with a “much leaner” national health agency.
“Minister Harris’ eight-point plan for the health service is:
- Shift Ireland’s model of healthcare towards more comprehensive and accessible primary care
- Increase health service capacity, in the form of physical infrastructure and staffing, to address unmet need and future demographic requirements
- Exploit the full potential of integrated care programmes and eHealth to achieve service integration around the needs of patients across primary, community and acute care
- Strengthen incentives for providers to effectively respond to unmet health care needs by ramping up activity-based funding
- Empower the voice of the clinician and provide them with opportunities to contribute to the management of our health services
- Further develop hospital groups and community health organisations, align them geographically and, as they develop, devolve greater decision-making and accountability
- Follow this with the provision of a statutory basis for hospital and community health organisations, operating as integrated delivery systems within defined geographic areas
- Once statutory responsibilities and accountabilities are devolved from the centre to hospital and community health organisations, dismantle the HSE and replace it with a much leaner national health agency. In the interim, reform the existing legislation within which the HSE operates to improve governance” The JOURNAL.ie Sun 4th June 2017