Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Select Committee on the Future of Healthcare

Health Service Reform: Dr. Brian Turner

9:00 am

Photo of Hildegarde NaughtonHildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Turner for coming before us this morning. I am particularly interested in his comments that the health service is under-resouced in terms of consultant numbers and the number of hospital beds per 1,000 of population. Dr. Turner gave the OECD average bed capacity per 1,000 of population as 4.85 compared with 2.8 in Ireland. The Department of Health is carrying out a bed capacity review. Is there any other metric, other than the OECD figure, to identifying our bed capacity needs?

Does Dr. Turner hold the view that the Department of Health should commission an independent review of bed capacity? In his opening statement he referred to the fact that the private hospital sector is deeply embedded in our health system and that it would not be possible to do without some form of private health service. Will he expand on that point as it will form a key part of the discussions that will feed into our report?

I would be interested to hear Dr. Turner share his top priority actions that would have a great impact on the health service.

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