Dr. Bridget Johnston:

Regarding the regions, I have spent the last year in the Department of Health helping with the new national palliative care policy for adults. We have seen the ambiguity around regions and what that leads to regarding being able to set out policy directions for health services going forward. From my own experience, I see the need for strong structures at the regional level to bring together providers. Integrated care relies on providers being able to work with each other and not work against these different structures or silos. The regionalisation, if put forward as envisaged in the original report, would remove some of those artificial barriers and allow true integration and flexibility to respond to the population there rather than it being dictated from the centre control where everybody does more of the same but with the money being allocated slightly differently. This is about a real shift, so the two come together. Without them, the intention of either is weakened.