David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. Last week, we had a very frustrating session with the Department of Health and the HSE. I will not go into the issues now. However, the substance of it was that it takes far too long to get anything done in healthcare. The delivery of some of the big picture reforms we are awaiting is moving at a very slow pace and there is no urgency with or funding behind many of the measures. It seems to be groundhog day. It is similar with the national strategies, or lack thereof.

Mr. Macey's opening statement was hard-hitting, and understandably so from his perspective. His organisation does good work but obviously needs the Department to have a cardiovascular disease, CVD, strategy, in the first instance, to come in behind it and then for that strategy to be properly funded and delivered. Mr. Macey spoke about the national cardiac services review that began almost six years ago. I was one of the five Oireachtas Members who sat in a room with the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and the former Chief Medical Officer, CMO, who was also at that meeting. Senior officials from the Department and the HSE were in attendance when that commitment was given. It was given on the back of the Herity report on cardiac services in Waterford. A long campaign took place in the south east on that issue. We had regular meetings with the Minister for Health who signed off on a national review, yet here we are six years later with still no sign of that review. To be clear in terms of distinction, my understanding of that review is that it looks at the delivery of acute services, particularly specialist services, primary percutaneous coronary intervention, PPCI, and where they should be located. Even when that review is published, it will not be a cardiovascular policy. There is a clear distinction between the two. Will Mr. Macey clarify that?