Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children. I welcome the opportunity to set out the current position regarding the restructuring of cancer services, with particular reference to Sligo General Hospital. Professor Tom Keane took up his position on Monday as national cancer control director to lead and manage the establishment of the national cancer control programme and I wish him every success in the implementation of the programme. The key objective of the programme is to ensure equity of access to services and equality of patient mortality and survival irrespective of geography. This will involve significant realignment of cancer services to move from the present fragmented system of care to one consistent with international best practice in cancer control. The decisions of the HSE on four managed cancer control networks and eight cancer centres will be implemented on a managed and phased basis.

The HSE has designated University College Hospital Galway, UCHG, and Limerick Regional Hospital as the two cancer centres in the managed cancer control network for the HSE western region, which includes Sligo. The national quality assurance standards for symptomatic breast disease services provide that each specialist unit should manage a minimum number of 150 new breast cancer cases per annum. Sligo General Hospital had 65 such cases in 2005. Many locations will feel they are losing out but we must be clear about the need for this change. People in the west and south have a poorer survival rate for common cancers, including breast cancer, than the remainder of the country. The designation of cancer centres aims to ensure patients receive the highest quality care, while at the same time allowing local access to services, where appropriate.

Sligo General Hospital has a dedicated inpatient oncology unit, comprising 15 beds, and a dedicated day services unit comprising eight beds. Where diagnosis and treatment planning is directed and managed by multidisciplinary teams based at the cancer centres, then much of the treatment, other than surgery, can be delivered in local hospitals such as Sligo. Cancer day care units will continue to have an important role in delivering services to patients close to home. The HSE is putting in place a structured programme of quality assurance, support and information services to underpin the reorganisation of services to ensure cancer patients will receive quality services as close to home as possible.

Patients from Sligo needing radiotherapy continue to be referred to the radiation oncology department at UCHG for treatment. The HSE has informed the Department that, in 2006, UCHG treated almost 1,000 radiation oncology patients, 107 of whom were from counties Sligo and Leitrim. The Minister met Minister Michael McGimpsey of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland, on 5 October last. The potential for further cross-Border co-operation and collaboration on cancer care, and specifically provision of a satellite centre for radiation oncology in the north west, linked to Belfast City Hospital, was discussed. Consideration of a satellite centre in the north west will have regard to populations in Border counties such as Donegal, Derry and parts of Fermanagh and Tyrone. It was agreed both Departments would progress this issue through the joint North-South feasibility study on the potential for future co-operation.

The Government is committed to making the full range of cancer services available and accessible to cancer patients throughout Ireland in accordance with best international standards. The developments I outlined will ensure a comprehensive service is available to all patients with cancer in the western and midland regions, including County Sligo.

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