Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Do any of the witnesses believe that the lack of legislation on hospital groups is delaying progress? Have the hospital groups reached a roadblock that is preventing progress?

With regard to the hospital groups, is it essential to have an academic university and research base attached to each group? I have a major concern that the hospital groups are not aligned with community health organisations and that we may be spawning mini-HSEs. When I hear that recruitment takes place in one way in voluntary hospitals and in another way in other hospitals, I wonder why there are no streamlined, comparable and replicable models available for all the groups? It seems astounding, given the population base, that this is not the case. Is there a reason we cannot have a set menu of services for each of the seven hospital groups? While I understand that Beaumont Hospital will continue to specialise in neurosurgery and that not every group can provide neurosurgery, I cannot understand the reason for the profound differences between each of the groups. When policymakers are considering this issue, we need to have figures that we can compare to enable us to plan for the future.

Has the board of each group quantified the amount of work being done in the group by the private hospital sector? What percentage, expressed in money terms, of the work being done in the hospital group is being done by private hospitals?

Last week, at a meeting of either this committee or the Joint Committee on Health and Children, we heard that a report had just been done on recruitment. I cannot recall the name of the person who spoke about the report. She was seated by Mr. Liam Woods at the meeting in question. Have the people who are in charge of the hospital groups seen the report in question? Surely they should know about a report done on recruitment when they are discussing the issue.