Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I have a question about the comparative analysis and benchmarking. It is something that puzzles me about the healthcare system. The capacity review says that even to get to an 85% occupancy rate, 1,300 new beds are needed, which is a huge number. The international benchmarking chapter on page 16 of the main report, which is useful, shows that we have a younger population and, therefore, currently, we should need less of everything in healthcare per capita, except perhaps maternity care. According to the resourcing figures, which have been benchmarked against good healthcare systems such as Australia, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand - these are best in class and not OECD averages - we have approximately the same number of GPs, nurses and hospital beds per capitabut we have a younger population and, therefore, we should need fewer. At the same time, we are experiencing poor healthcare outcomes comparatively and the capacity review says that even today, a huge number of new beds are needed. Those two outcomes do not intuitively tie together. Will the witnesses explain why, if we need less per capitaand technically we have more GPs, nurses and beds than we should need relative to some of the best healthcare systems in the world, the capacity review has found that we have much less than we need? What is going on with that?