Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an area that is extraordinarily important and one in which significant progress has been made over the past ten years or so from a very low base in this country in terms of access to palliative care and in terms of the provision of hospice services in general. If one looks at a map of Ireland now, as I did recently with the palliative care people in the HSE, there is significant hospice coverage around the country with a number of blackspots, if I may call them that, intended to be filled in within the coming years. Some of those are Cavan and Monaghan, the midlands and my own county of Wicklow. There are a couple of obvious places on the map.

With regard to actual palliative care services, let us look at the increased provision and increased targets this year in the document I circulated from the Department. Some of them are worth putting on the record. For access to specialist palliative care services in the community provided within seven days in the normal place of residence, a target of 91.5% was set for 2016. We achieved 95%, with a view to maintaining that 95% target this year. The number of patients in receipt of specialist palliative care in the community in the reporting month was 3,341 in 2016 and will be 3,620 in 2017. Access to specialist palliative inpatient beds provided with seven days was achieved at a rate of 96.8%. Our target for this year is 98%. The number accessing specialist inpatient beds - this is a new key performance indicator that was not in last year - has a target of 3,555 for each reporting month this year.

The number of children in the care of the children's outreach nursing and specialist palliative care team is a very important and emotive area. We have set new key performance indicators for this year. There were 453 last year. The number of children in the care of the children's outreach nursing team has a new target of 269 for 2017. The target number of children in the care of the children's specialist palliative care team in Crumlin hospital or in Temple Street for each of the reporting months is 20 for 2017. That is a new target for this year as well. This is an area in which substantive progress is being made and that is reflected in the figures I have outlined. It is also reflected in the great work that the Irish Hospice Foundation has done with the Department over a sustained period and in the evaluation report on children's palliative care, which was published only a matter of months ago.