Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator is not making the point, but it frustrates me when people suggest that all of the projects are in Dublin, when they are in fact national projects that will transform the lives of children, including children from Cork, whose parents have had to sleep on cold floors overnight. Every child will have a single en suiteroom and proper facilities. However, Senator Burke's point about the elective hospital in Cork is important. We have the funding in place to deliver three new elective hospitals in Cork, Dublin and Galway, respectively. This will transform the delivery of scheduled healthcare in Ireland. I visited the elective hospital in Glasgow last year. Scotland had a similar outlook in its health service to Ireland. It is similar in population and there are similar demographic issues. However, it is not that long ago that Scotland had waiting lists of approximately two years for some procedures whereas it is now fulfilling the Sláintecare target of seeing people within 12 weeks. The hospitals in Dublin, Galway and Cork are three key pieces of infrastructure that will help us to realise our dream and to implement and deliver on Sláintecare.

We have heard very clearly from Oireachtas Members, including Senator Colm Burke, the South/South West hospital group, clinicians and many others in Cork of the importance of moving on with preparations for the elective hospital. The message is not to waste time or to wait until the profiling arrives for all of the capital for the hospital. We are being asked to do the preparatory work now. There are two distinct streams of work that need to be done here. First, the question arises as to what we are going to put in our elective hospitals because that varies from country to country. It might even vary from one part of the country to another. The question of what an elective hospital will provide is very important when working out where it needs to be located and what staff it needs. The second issue is site selection. While those streams of work are distinct, they complement each other. After considering this and having heard the feedback of Senator Colm Burke and others, including concerns about groups not being fully represented or boards being properly structured, the Secretary General of the Department of Health wrote to the chair of the South/South West hospital group in recent weeks. The letter noted that we want the group to do these two streams of work and to come back to us with the membership of the group's committees. The group has sent in some draft membership documents and has been asked to come back with the final membership lists and to have those two work strands completed by the end of this year. That is the timeline to which we are working. We have not done this for the other elective hospitals. As such, we are recognising that there is an energy in Cork around this and a determination to get moving. The hospital group wants to get moving on it. I expect to have those two streams of work completed by the end of the year and back in the Department, which will leave us well placed to advance the elective hospital.

I have two comments on the issue of consultants. I accept that we have a recruitment challenge in relation to consultants. It would be foolish to say anything else. However, I do not accept the narrative that is sometimes put out there that the numbers are declining because that does not stack up. The figures show that we are continuing to see extra consultants working in the Irish health service. There have been significant increases in the number of people taking up consultant posts in the Irish health service albeit I accept there are still vacancies. I repeat what I said at the IMO conference in Killarney. We had a number of major HR and IR issues to work through in the health service. With the GPs, the job is done and a new agreement has been made. With the nurses' dispute, the job is done in terms of them accepting the agreement, which is being implemented. Logically, the next group with which we need to sit down is consultants. I made a commitment at the IMO conference that the Government would follow the recommendations of the Public Service Pay Commission and put in place a process. As Senator Colm Burke was right to say, we live in a globally competitive world and we need to attract consultants to our country. We need to get some of our Irish consultants to return while keeping others here.

I will be working with Government colleagues to work out what that process will look like. We need a process and to engage with consultants in the same way as we must engage with GPs and nurses.

On the point made about haemochromatosis, I am pleased that under the new GP agreement, GMS patients with the condition will no longer have to attend hospital for therapeutic phlebotomy. Instead, the service will be provided locally by a GP. This will obviously be more convenient for the patient. It will benefit about 7,000 to 8,000 patients who normally require three therapeutic phlebotomy sessions per annum. It is taking approximately 7,000 to 8,000 patients out of hospitals and transferring them to the primary care service. The Senator is correct that GPs wanted to do this. They, rightly, only wanted to do it when resourced to do so. That is fair. We now have resourced them under the new agreement. It will see a transfer, a real shift of approximately 7,000 to 8,000 patients out of the hospital setting into the community setting. I do not know whether Dr. Henry wishes to add anything to what I have said.