David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 9, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:

“Progress report 7. The Executive shall, after 18 months and within 24 months of the passing of this Act, submit a report to the Houses of the Oireachtas outlining:

(a) progress towards system-wide Digital Health Records;

(b) progress on integrated financial management systems and outstanding requirements;(c) progress on digitisation of primary and community care services, including the delivery of technology-assisted care at home;

(d) progress on digitisation of acute health services;

(e) engagement with general practitioners, community pharmacists, and other community practicing health and social care professionals on their information

technology needs as it relates to system-wide integration or interoperability and the modernisation of service provision;

(f) engagement with acute hospitals, including voluntary hospitals, on their information technology needs as it relates to system-wide integration or interoperability and the modernisation of service provision;

(g) resource requirements for the implementation, development and maintenance of major information technology projects;

(h) the extent of data collected for the purposes of population-based planning and any blockages or inhibitors identified during the period requiring policy change or additional funding to resolve;

(i) the level of funding made available for digital innovation;

(j) security risks and the steps taken to mitigate such risks.”

As other members have said, all of this is very exciting. There are a lot of benefits to what is being done here. The framework published last year was a very good and an important piece of work for the health service. I fully support it and I want to see its implementation. The committee has discussed this issue a number of times over a number of years. We had what I would describe as a tense or difficult session with the Secretary General of the Department and his officials. There had been pushback from the Department of public expenditure against rolling any of this out. The Minister might recall some of that. It was controversial at that time. We want to park all of that and move forward. We have the new strategy and a new plan. There are lots of moving parts to this. It would be useful to impose an obligation on the health system to come back in a number of years with a progress report setting out where we are. Some progress has been made since we met in 2023. We got that information today and it is all very worthwhile and commendable.

It is important for us, as a health committee, to keep track of it, particularly given the advantages we have discussed to patients, the healthcare system and so on. Will consideration be given to that? I know these amendments are routinely put down for Bills and are very often not accepted for all sorts of reasons, but given that we have a strategy and there is a lot in this legislation that we all want to see progress and of which we are all supportive, it would be useful to have a report and then a meeting of the health committee to look at what progress has been made. That is the purpose for which the amendment is intended.