Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Productivity and Savings Task Force: Discussion

10:00 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

There are the headwinds of demographic change and what that means for demand, which is, in the main, predictable to anticipate, even though, as Mr. Gloster mentioned earlier, the demand we are seeing is probably ahead of what we thought the demography would lead us to. It is partly a function of the fact that services are now available, more treatments are available for conditions and more drugs are available to treat things which previously were not able to be treated. The demand is steady.

Winter is always the big risk. If respiratory disease-flu is more virulent than previous years, that could lead to such pressure that we may have to cancel more scheduled procedures. That is what we are trying to avoid with winter planning across many different things. It is the winter respiratory season. We know it will happen and it will cause pressure, but if it is worse than the past number of years, that could-----

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