Ms Kathryn Walsh:

I welcome the presentation here today. To go back a bit, any information we have on the previous plan, which ran from 2010 to 2019, we largely got through parliamentary questions. We undertook an exercise in 2017 and 2018 to try to understand the status of the recommendations, particularly as the plan was coming to an end in 2019, but no formal evaluation was planned at that stage. We were told that it would take place in 2019 and that, in deliberations on the national cardiac services review, the status of these recommendations would be revealed. Again, nothing came out of that. In the end, we submitted freedom of information requests to the Department of Health. What we found was that there was no designated responsibility for cardiovascular policy within the Department. We could not find someone to take these freedom of information requests. Eventually, they went to the national patient safety office, NPSO, which had responsibility for the cardiac services review. No evaluation of the recommendations was ever done. As yet, there is no plan to review them, to carry out an evaluation or to put together a new plan. I reiterate that there was nobody with responsibility for cardiovascular policy.

The only thing that is happening in respect of cardiac services is a cardiac services review. This was put on hold as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and because Professor Philip Nolan is playing an active and important role on the national public health emergency team, NPHET. However, when he took his place there, the process stopped and only recently the post of project manager for the review was advertised. That position was advertised as a 12-month secondment. Outside of the completion of the national cardiac services review, there is no responsibility for cardiovascular policy. I will highlight that the scope and parameters of that review do not cover that full and holistic approach to health that would involve prevention, treatment, care in the community and rehabilitation. It is just looking specifically at the reconfiguration of cardiac services.