Ms Kathryn Reilly:

The lack of national policy is a real impediment, as is the lack of any designated officials within the Department of Health to drive it. I know it sits under the CMO's office but there is so much under the CMO's office. Reviews of the previous plan were mentioned earlier and whether nothing was done. I made an FOI request a number of years ago on the previous cardiovascular health policy and how it would feed into the national review of cardiac services because responses to parliamentary questions were telling me it would be reviewed in the context of the national cardiac services review. I did that FOI request and apparently that was banged around the Department a number of times to figure out who was actually responsible for answering it. Eventually, an official from the National Patient Safety Office got in touch with me and she said that this FOI request had fallen on her desk and that for the moment, she only had half a day a week on these issues. She was an official and she said she did not know about any review of this policy. Yes, there will be a new project manager responsible for taking the review of cardiac services forward. However in terms of the overarching policy, this FOI request was sent to this person's desk, who had half a day on this policy. There is nobody there driving it and that is really concerning.