Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 November 2025

Select Committee on Health

Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Health (Supplementary)

2:00 am

Ms Louise McGirr:

I will speak to that and PCRS.

On primary care, the performance is very poor but there is still very significant variation, even within the regions. The focus and the devolution need to really flip to the outcome and the output. The performance accountability will be much stronger next year. That is the focus. REOs and national services will be held to account for delivery of those. As regards the visibility and the data we now have to do this and move like other countries with, to be honest, very successful health systems and very good outcomes, they have all moved to this output and outcome focus and to what matters to patients. You put yourself in the shoes of the patient and you measure that, not the input. That is where we are going with this, and we have the data now to help us with this. We have comparative data. The development of that over the course of the next year or two, looking at rewarding the outcomes and the performance we want and funding those rather than the input cost, is where more developed systems have gone, enabled by digital, better utilisation, productivity and so on. It is all about safe access.

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